“Maybe the play wasn't about miracles. No, maybe it was about the passage of time, and the need for patience, and the ability to forgive. Maybe Shakespeare was saying that even in a world where miracles can happen, there's still going to be pain, and loss, and regret. Because sometimes people die and you can't bring them back. That's what life is Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Time is supposed to move forwards.'
'What if I don't like what happens?'
'Then...you change it.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“But there are other stories waiting to be told, and they will be lost one day, too. Whatever the case, it's all beneath your feet, right now.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Standing on the roof at night, beside the golden ship
I look across the city and I dream a wild trip.
The waves are high, the wind is strong, the moon is white and full.
I smell the salt upon the sea, a strong magnetic pull.
I shout into the endless dark, awaiting the reply:
'Away! Away' It says: 'Away! Now spread your wings and fly.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“That night, cold and alone, Joseph had thought he'd found a portal into the past.
But he'd been wrong. It was a vision of the future.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Albert casually tossed everything back into the water. "Walking along the shore here is like walking on history," he said. "It's like walking on an endless catalogue of lost stories waiting to be told, and they will be lost one day, too. Whatever the case, it's all beneath your feet, right now.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Albert shrugged, but Joseph could sense a world of things his uncle wasn't saying.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“His mother stared into his eyes and paused for a moment. She stood completely still, as if she'd transformed into a statue. Joseph found himself thinking again about the end of The Winter's Tale and the queen's return to life. He still felt angry that the young prince Mamillius hadn't been saved, too, and he thought about Marcus, but as he looked up at his mother's face, a new thought came to him. Maybe the play wasn't about miracles. No, maybe it was about the passage of time, and the need for patience, and the ability to forgive. Maybe Shakespeare was saying that even in a world where miracles can happen, there's still going to pain, and lost, and regret. Because sometimes people die and you can't bring them back. That's what life is Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“So after some instruction, Joseph put on the apron and started carefully polishing the clean dishes even though it made no sense to him.
Over the course of the day, he learned how to wash the floors and clean the windows and empty out the iron stove. Soon the kitchen smelled of lemons and spices, fresh bread and soap.
There was a short break for lunch before resuming work. The light shifted during the afternoon and cascaded through the clean windows, burnishing the room with gold.
Joseph was so focused on the work, on the patters of the silverware and the curve of the handles on the ancient pitchers and measuring cups, that he forgot for a little while about his parents, and St. Anthony's, and the fire, and losing Blink. He felt a kind of pride in being allowed to touch all the delicate glassware, plates, and bowls, and he hadn't broken a single thing.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“The light bounced off the water and shimmered against the buildings on the other side of the river. Joseph walked, listening to the sound of what was beneath his feet, and soon he noticed he was alone. He turned and saw Frankie had stopped beside Albert and filled her jacket pockets. Looking at the two of them, Joseph wondered for a moment if Leo had ever come down here to go mudlarking, his red hair shining in the sun. the vision seemed so vivid, but then Joseph remembered that Leo wasn't real, and the boy dissolved like smoke into the winter sky.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“You either see it or you don't.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Maybe time is like that insect," Blink said, "trapped beneath the crystal of your watch.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," translated Florent. "By Jules Verne. This book I have not read in many years."
"We're reading it in French class," Joseph said. "It's hard to understand, but I found a line that Uncle Albert would love."
Florent opened to a dog-eared page where Joseph had underlined a sentence and written the translation in the margin. Florent read it out loud. "'Let me tell you, Professor, that you will not regret the time spent on board. You are going to travel in a a land of marvels.”
― Brian Selznick, quote from The Marvels
Brian Selznick
Born place: in East Brunswick, New Jersey, The United States
Born date July 14, 1966
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“She turned. A young man of godlike proportions* was standing in the doorway.
*The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Thud!
“I feel that for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known. I feel that America's past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the ride and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it if felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one - of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness. Am I damning my native land? No; for I, too, share these faults of character! And I really do not think that America, adolescent and cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice, is ready to probe into its most fundamental beliefs.”
― Richard Wright, quote from Black Boy
“These past two days, I’ve seen a fire in your eyes that I never have before. Granted, it’s mostly anger and frustration, but it’s still emotion.”
― Rebecca Donovan, quote from Reason to Breathe
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
― C.S. Lewis, quote from Mere Christianity
“I find that the more I dislike adults, the more apt I am to call them Sir. “What?”
― Stephen King, quote from Christine
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The EnemyBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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