Margaret Peterson Haddix · 218 pages
Rating: (14.3K votes)
“A thousand times today I've started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, "Can you tell me...? But then I'd look into the front seat, at my mother's silent shaking, my father's grim profile, the mournful bags under his eyes, and all the questions I might ask seemed abusive. Assault and battery, a question mark used like a club. My parents are old and fragile. I'd have to heartless to want to hurt them.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Double Identity
“The sudden silence is horrifying, and it seems to catch my mother off guard. A tiny whimper escapes her, the sound amplified in the stillness. Surely, my father hears her now; surely he and I can't go on pretending she isn't crying.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Double Identity
“That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father - burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin - doesn't seem to belong on it.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Double Identity
“Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Double Identity
“Oh, Myr," he chokes out. "I hate having to ask this of you..."
He glances towards the car again, and I crouch down in the shadows, hoping it's too dark for him to see whether the window is open or closed. The woman pats his arm, cradling her hand against his elbow.
"You know I'd do anything for you and Hil," she says. I like her voice. It's throaty and rich.
"You'd do anything?" my father repeats numbly. "Even now? After -?"
"Even now," the woman says firmly.”
― Margaret Peterson Haddix, quote from Double Identity
“Things don't just happen, they have reasons. And the reasons have reasons. And the reasons for the reasons have reasons. And then the things that happen make other things happen, so they become reasons themselves. Nothing moves forward in a straight line, nothing is straightforward.”
― Kevin Brooks, quote from Martyn Pig
“I will say this about that moment when you realize your worst nightmare has proven to be reality— it can be oddly comforting. After all, once you’ve hit rock bottom and lived, there’s only one place you can go, and that’s up.”
― David Clawson, quote from My Fairy Godmother Is a Drag Queen
“I knew the schedule. I liked to know in advance where people would be and where they wouldn't be.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals
“Arabella ran out of blackboard space, crouched, and began dividing on the floor. “This is what we get for teaching them Common Core,” one of the arbiters said. “There is nothing wrong with Common Core,” someone else said. Arabella”
― Ilona Andrews, quote from Wildfire
“As a child I had grown up around individual dogs that belonged to various members of an extended family and friends, as well as around packs of dogs on family's and neighbors' ranches. Growing up in the United States, I had countless encounters with both familiar dogs and strange dogs. Through the many encounters and interactions with many dogs over the course of a lifetime of now 5+ decades, I have learned to read the behavior of dogs quite well, and eventually have come to understand much about dog-psychology, how to behave around them, how to handle them, and how to train them to acceptably behave – all in the most instinctive and natural way possible.”
― Yohai Reuben, quote from Sadie the German Shepherd Dog Puppy: How to House-Train your GSD without a Crate (Sadie the GSD)
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