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
“Worry can pull a person’s face into a mask of anxious lines, and he could tell she’d had some of that, but even worried folks could laugh.”
― Ari Berk, quote from Death Watch
“He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Bayla, is this how you'd kill me?" she asked out loud. There are easier ways. You could send another snake. I am sorry I ate the first one." Hearing her own voice made her feel braver. "He was delicious, though”
― Sarah Beth Durst, quote from Vessel
“Our education might stop, if we so choose. Our brains’ never does. The brain will keep reacting to how we decide to use it. The difference is not whether or not we learn, but what and how we learn.”
― Maria Konnikova, quote from Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
“The war on apathy moved much slower than real wars fought on the ground.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Earth Unaware
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