Quotes from The Way the Crow Flies

Ann-Marie MacDonald ·  848 pages

Rating: (11.5K votes)


“There are some stories you can't hear enough. They are the same every time you hear them. But you are not. That's one reliable way of understanding time.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“Afterwards, in bed with a book, the spell of television feels remote compared to the journey into the page. To be in a book. To slip into the crease where two pages meet, to live in the place where your eyes alight upon the words to ignite a world of smoke and peril, colour and serene delight. That is a journey no one can end with the change of a channel. Enduring magic.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“Writing. Opening a vein in your wrist with a spoon.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“As time went by, it mattered less and less that in 1969 a rocket went from Florida to the moon and men walked there. Good men. People's dads. Those were only events, scattered in time. Draw them close, rub them between thumb and finger till they look like larvae, soften like silk, distend to knot, to weave. It takes a village to kill a child.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“She rejoins the crowd and watches with her friends, but she feels like an emptied glass - that crestfallen feeling of walking out from a movie theatre in the middle of the day, out from the intimate matinée darkness and the smell of popcorn, which is the smell of heightened colour and sound and story, into the borderless bright of day. Bereft.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies



“Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men. . . . Repeat, and cradle the pieces carefully, or events will scatter like marbles on a wooden floor.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“Perhaps God dropped them on their heads before they were born.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“Between a mother’s eyes and her son’s face, there is not air. There is something invisible and invincible. Even though—or because—he will go out into the world, she will never lose her passion to protect him.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


“You always run into something no matter where you go. Turns out you're someplace after all.”
― Ann-Marie MacDonald, quote from The Way the Crow Flies


About the author

Ann-Marie MacDonald
Born place: in Baden-Baden, Germany
Born date October 29, 1958
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I've missed you so much it's felt like missing you is all I am.
Like if someone looked inside me, there wouldn't be a skeleton and muscles and blood and nerves. There'd just be memories of you and all the things I've tried to say and ripped out of this notebook, all the things I want to say but can't because I don't have the words.”
― Elizabeth Scott, quote from Love You Hate You Miss You


“I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge


“Ten books or twenty books are not enough to instill a love of reading in students. They must choose and read many books for themselves in order to catch the reading bug. By setting the requirement as high as I do, I ensure that students must have a book going constantly. Without the need to read a book every single day to stay on top of my requirement, students would read as little as they could. They might not internalize independent reading habits if my requirement expected less from them.”
― Donalyn Miller, quote from The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child


“Listen carefully to me. Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention...There is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place. Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by out intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.”
― Andy Andrews, quote from The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective


“The real question one should ask when presented with a puzzle is, ‘Should I solve it? Do I really need to know the answer?”
― Tony DiTerlizzi, quote from The Search for WondLa


Interesting books

The Count of Monte Cristo, V1
(4.8K)
The Count of Monte C...
by Alexandre Dumas
Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
(6.2K)
Chasing Fireflies: A...
by Charles Martin
Horus Rising
(10.8K)
Horus Rising
by Dan Abnett
The Emperor
(4.5K)
The Emperor
by Ryszard Kapuściński
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung
(1.4K)
Quotations from Chai...
by Mao Zedong
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1
(4K)

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.