Liesl Shurtliff · 272 pages
Rating: (13.5K votes)
“They say that a minute is a minute no matter where you are or what you're doing, but my brain could never grasp that. I think time is a trickster. When I have a lot to do, time shrinks, but when I want something over with, it stretches and yawns, and laughs at my torture. Sometimes the minutes hold hours inside of them.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“And that's its own kind of magic - to feel that people who are gone are still here.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Home is a place to get out of the rain
It cradles the hurt and mends the pain
And no one cares about your name
Or the height of your head
Or the size of your brain”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“I didn't think meanness was ever in anyone's destiny. Meanness was a choice.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Simple needs make a simple life.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“A name is a powerful thing.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“It's difficult to tell how much time is really passing when you're hungry and bored.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Maybe destiny isn't something that just happens. Maybe destiny is something you do. Maybe destiny is like a seed and it grows.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“It's hard not to feel guilty when starving people bring you food.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“What's that?"
"He just fell from that tower!"
"Is he dead?"
"He's alive, I think."
Someone bent over me. "Are you alive?"
"I'm alive," I said breathlessly, "and I'm going to have a baby."
"What did he just say?"
"Something about a baby."
"A baby." I said, and then I blacked out.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“I woke with my name singing in my ears. It was a beautiful sound, music unlike any in the world. It made me wish that everything could have such a name. Not just people, but animals and villages, and roads and kingdoms, even mountains.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Life would be awfully grim and glum if I couldn't laugh at myself.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“It's all the things in the middle that make a person special.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“All magic has consequences, Rump. Even small magic can have big consequences.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Just as people laugh at a name like Rump, they fear a name like Red. Red is not a name. It's a color, an evil color. What kind of destiny does that bring?”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Martha spouted off a long message to the gnome, including all the details of my injuries, precisely where I was, and who Martha was and her son Helmut. When she asked the gnome to repeat the message, he got it all mixed up, and so she did it again and made it longer, but he still got it all mixed up, and so they went back and forth, and finally Martha lost patience and threw him out the window. The gnome scurried away chanting, “Red for message! Red for message!”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“King Barf isn’t actually named King Barf. His real name is King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife, a fine, kingly name—a name with a great destiny, of course. But I don’t care how handsome or powerful that name makes you. It’s a mouthful. So for short I call him King Barf, though I’d never say it out loud.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Rumpel. Stiltskin. I heard Mother’s whisper reaching across years and mountains and valleys. Rumpel. Stiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin. The name, my name, shook in my chest. It traveled through my brain and down my arms and fingertips to my legs and toes. The sound of it echoed so loud inside of me I felt I would burst.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“A stiltskin is magic at its greatest. Pure magic, un-meddled-with and more powerful than any enchantment or spell.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“Rhymes make me feel better when I'm down...When you say the words and the sounds match, it feels like everything in the world is in its place and whatever you say is powerful and true.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“It’s difficult to tell how much time is really passing when you’re hungry and bored. They say that a minute is a minute no matter where you are or what you’re doing, but my brain could never grasp that. I think time is a trickster. When I have a lot to do, time shrinks, but when I want something over with, it stretches and yawns, and laughs at my torture. Sometimes the minutes hold hours inside of them. This was one of those times.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
“The strangeness crept into my dream that night. A woman was spinning by the fireplace. She had long black hair and green eyes, like mine. I had never seen this woman before, but I knew she was my mother. She was spinning straw into gold. She smiled at the gold at first, and the glittering skeins piled around her feet, like a golden pool. But as the pile grew larger, her smile faded. Her spinning slowed and seemed to be difficult, but still she spun. The pile grew and grew and grew, spreading wider and rising higher. When the gold reached my mother’s chin, she looked panicked, like she was submerged in water and didn’t know how to swim. When it reached her eyes, they were full of fear. Finally, the gold covered her whole head, and I couldn’t see her anymore. But the pile of gold still grew. When it reached the ceiling, I woke up.”
― Liesl Shurtliff, quote from Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
Liesl Shurtliff
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