Quotes from The Girl with No Shadow

Joanne Harris ·  444 pages

Rating: (13.6K votes)


“Children are knives, my mother once said. They don’t mean to, but they cut. And yet we cling to them, don’t we, we clasp them until the blood flows.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“Everything comes home, my mother used to say; every word spoken, every shadow cast, every footprint in the sand. It can't be helped; it's part of what makes us who we are. ”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“A man who casts no shadow isn't really a man at all.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“The real magic - the magic we'd lived with all our lives, my mother's magic of charms and cantrips, of salt by the door and a red silk sachet to placate the little gods - had turned sour on us that summer, somehow, like a spider that turns from good luck to bad at the stroke of midnight, spinning its web to catch our dreams. And for every little spell of charm, for every card dealt and every rune cast and every sign scratched against a doorway to divert the path of malchance, the wind just blew a little harder, tugging at our clothes, sniffing at us like a hungry dog, moving us here and moving us there.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow



“We came in the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, or promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coat-tails and hats; rushing towards summer in a frenzy of exuberance.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“Like a domestic cat, purring on the sofa by day, but by night, a strutting queen, a natural killer, disdainful of her other life.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“That wind. I see it's blowing now. Furtive but commanding, it has dictated every move we've ever made. My mother felt it, and so do I - even here, even now - as it sweeps us like leaves into his backseat corner, dancing us to shreds against the stones. V'la l'bon vent, v'a l'joli vent. I though we'd silenced it for good. But the smallest thing can wake the wind@ a word, a sign, even a death. There's no such thing as a trivial thing. Everything costs; it all adds up until finally the balance shifts and we're gone again, back on the road, telling ourselves - well maybe next time”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“Clones fit in. Freaks stand out. Ask me which one I prefer.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“Wild birds will kill exotic ones: the budgies and the lovebirds and the yellow canaries-- escaped from their cages and hoping to get a taste of the sky -- usually end up back on the ground, plucked raw by their more conformist cousins”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow



“To be a mother is to live in fear. Fear of death, of sickness, of loss, of accidents, of strangers, of the Black Man, or simply those small everyday things that somehow manage to hurt us most: the look of impatience, the angry word, the missed bedtime story, the forgotten kiss, the terrible moment when a mother ceases to be the center of her daughter’s world and becomes”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“If wishes were horses, beggers would ride”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


“Вечността е ужасно дълга, а тук, в задънената улица на годината, Смъртта изведнъж става съвсем осезаема.
Нали тъкмо и затова е и този празник на зимните светлини? Той е жалко опълчване срещу лицето на мрака. Наречето го Коледа, ако искате, но и вие и аз знаем, че става въпрос за нещо много по-древно. И зад всичките гирлянди и коледни песни, и благи вести, и подаръци се крие една по-сурова и по-дълбока истина.
Това е време на скръб и загуба, на жертвоприношения, на страх, тъма, пустота, смърт. Ацтеките са знаели, както и маите, че боговете им са копнеели не да спасят света, а да го унищожат, и единствено кръвта на жертвоприношението би могла да ги умилостиви.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Girl with No Shadow


About the author

Joanne Harris
Born place: in Barnsley, The United Kingdom
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Popular quotes

“Two weeks later, I wore a coat to school for the first time that year. Fall had made its presence known in the form of wet, earthy smells and shivering tree limbs shedding leaves in various shades of exotic cat. I walked to school that morning, listening to the crisp sounds that punctuated each one of my footfalls and the honks of geese flying overhead. I found it strange that there could be so much beauty in the death of all these living things. Maybe it was only beautiful because we knew they would be resurrected next spring. I don't think I would enjoy fall quite as much if I knew there was an eternal winter to follow.”
― Ruth Emmie Lang, quote from Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance


“She kept him on his toes every time they met, so it was only fair he got to do the same. Never mind how much he was growing to like their games.”
― Lisa Maxwell, quote from The Last Magician


“لو كنا خيّرين تقائياً وموجّهين طبيعياً نحو الخير م كانت هناك حاجة لوصايا زجرية. لا بل نحن بعيدون ك البعد عن ذلك كم تلاحظ دون شك... إنما وفي أغلب الأوقات, نحن لا نجد صعوبة في معرفة مايجب القيام به من أجل العمل الصالح, لكننا لا نتوقف عن السماح لأنفسنا ببعض الاستثناءات, وذلك لأننا وبكل بساطة نفضّل أنفسنا على الآخرين! لهذا السبب يدعونا الواجب الملزم للمزيد من "الضغط على الذات" ولبذل الجهود من أجل الاستمرار في التقدم والتحسن”
― Luc Ferry, quote from A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living


“A political system devoted to decline instinctively does much to speed up that process. —Jean-Paul Sartre”
― quote from Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany


“There's a non-existent peace in the uncertain quietness”
― Fernando Pessoa, quote from Poems of Fernando Pessoa


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