Trenton Lee Stewart · 485 pages
Rating: (100.7K votes)
“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Rules and school are tools for fools! I don't give two mules for rules.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Oh, here’s a clever one. Do you remember this question from the first test? It reads, ‘What’s wrong with this statement?’ And do you know what Constance wrote in reply? She wrote, ‘What’s wrong with you?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Is this what family is like: the feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing, the whole thing’s broken?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“And please don't call me that."
I didn't call you 'that', I called you George Washington.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Children are capable of such open rudeness.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Every great thinker keeps a journal, you know.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“The missing aren't missing, they're only departed,
All minds keep all thoughts - so like gold - closely guarded,”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Why, then, do you think the white player might have done it?”
Reynie considered. He imagined himself moving out his knight only to bring it right back to where it started. Why would he ever do such a thing? At last he said, “Perhaps because he doubted himself.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Poor Kate,” said Constance, “she’s lost her marbles.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“One problem with being a leader, is that even among your friends you are alone, for it is you -- and you alone -- to whom the others look for final guidance.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Grow the lawn and mow the lawn
always keep the TV on,
brush your teeth and kill the germs,
poison apples, poison worms.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Daddy, will you take me to the mill, again?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Reynie's fce fell. 'It's not funny, Kate.'
For a moment - a fleeting moment - Kate looked desperately sad. 'Well, of course it's not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“She announced her age right away, for children consider their ages every bit as important as their names.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Milligan! Come and tell us why you're so dreadfully glum!" ~ Constance, The Mysterious Benedict Society”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Everything is as it should be.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could.
"Why are you flinching?" the pencil woman asked.
"I don't know. I thought maybe you were going to slap me."
"Don't be ridiculous. I could slap you perfectly well with your eyes open. I'm only going to blindfold you.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“I can't say for sure, because I have no experience, but -- well, is this what family is like? The feeling that everyone's connected, that with one piece missing the whole thing's broken?”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“They stared out their window at night enough to know where the darkest shadows lay, and it was to the darkest shadows they kept.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“No one seems to realize how much we are driven by FEAR, the essential component of human personality. Everything else - from ambition to love to despair - derives in some way from this single powerful emotion.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“You are the smartest children i know. You just don't beleive it.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“For every exit, there is also an entrance.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Don't thank me,' Mr. Curtain called as the door slid closed. 'Impress me!”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“If we're just trying to be accurate, then how about 'The Doomed to Fail Bunch'?" said Constance.
"Honestly! We can't even name ourselves.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“At this, Constance sat down on a rock and covered her face. She seemed smaller than ever now - so small the harbor breeze might catch her up like a scrap of paper and carry her away, carry her into nowhere.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Oh dear,"cried Rhonda just then, for Mr. Benedict, awash in strong emotion, has gone to sleep.with a sudden loud snore he toppled forward into the attentive arms of Rhonda and Number Two, who eased him to the floor.
"What's wrong with him?" Constance asked.
"He has narcolepsy," said Kate.
"He steals a lot?"
"That's kleptomania," Sticky said. "Mr. Benedict sleeps a lot.”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, quote from The Mysterious Benedict Society
“Remember-doubts may check pride, but too much doubt will keep you from doing what must be done.”
― M.L. Forman, quote from Slathbog's Gold
“Sometimes it was hard to express how much you loved someone. You said the words, but you could never quite capture the depth of it. You could never quite hold someone tightly enough.”
― Diane Chamberlain, quote from The Midwife's Confession
“With hidden powers of unknown extent apparently at his disposal, Curwen was not a man who could safely be warned to leave town.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
“If you've never done anything wrong it's probably because you have never tried anything new.”
― Albert Einstein, quote from Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
“The truth of the matter is that—by an exorbitant paradox—I never stop believing that I am loved. I hallucinate what I desire. Each wound proceeds less from a doubt than from a betrayal: for only the one who loves can betray, only the one who believes himself loved can be jealous: that the other, episodically, should fail in his being, which is to love me—that is the origin of all my woes. A delirium, however, does not exist unless one wakens from it(there are only retrospective deliriums): one day, I realize what has happened to me: I thought I was suffering from not being loved, and yet it is because I thought I was loved that I was suffering; I lived in the complication of supposing myself simultaneously loved and abandoned. Anyone hearing my intimate language would have had to exclaim, as of a difficult child: But after all, what does he want?”
― Roland Barthes, quote from A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
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