Gregory Maguire · 295 pages
Rating: (6.5K votes)
“quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me. And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.”
“So she listened hard. And she began to evolve, because stories work their magic that way. They build conviction and erode conviction in equal measure.”
“Wishing is the beginning of imagination. They practice wishing when they are young things, and then -when they have grown - they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm - greed, that kind of thing - but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better.”
“Old Flossie settle down on the other side of What-the-Dickens and dragged some handiwork out of a sack. She armed herself with two thorns shaped into knitting needles. A wodge of curlicued metallic scrubbing pad supplied the threat. 'I knit handcuffs as a hobby,' explained Old Flossie happily, and set to work. 'Idle hands get up to no good, so I like to be prepared in case I meet up with any idle hands.”
“Skibbereen have a hard time at [math]; the best that the smartest of them can do with adding two plus two is guessing: three plus one. Correct, sort of, but not always useful.”
“He had no other plans for the rest of his life. He followed her.”
“Very few things in the world are certain, but morning is one of them.”
“Children talk themselves out of their convictions as they grow up and become distracted by their huge selfish selves. All the literature is consistent on this point. Children begin to think they've imagined us.”
“He was hungry without yet knowing that hunger could be slaked by food; he was lonely without yet knowing that loneliness could be slaked, too.”
“So young, he knew nothing about aerodynamics, except how the heart could lift and lift.”
“Even a clock has teeth and time has a bite all of its own.”
“Oh, the accident necessary to fiction!”
“You lie, cheat and steal and call it courtesy, cunning and thrift.”
“I seek a place that can never be destroyed, one that is pure, and that fadeth not away, and it is laid up in heaven, and safe there, to be given, at the time appointed, to them that seek it with all their heart. Read it so, if you will, in my book.”
“From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
“Do you have any idea how late it is? Go to sleep," she scolded as she hurried past him.
"I know, I'm going to bed right now ... Hey! YOU go to sleep," Jerry scolded back, belatedly remembering that he was the parent.”
“But as a kid, I preferred the black side, and often wished that Mommy had sent me to black schools like my friends. Instead I was stuck at that white school, P.S. 138, with white classmates who were convinced I could dance like James Brown. They constantly badgered me to do the “James Brown” for them, a squiggling of the feet made famous by the “Godfather of Soul” himself, who back in the sixties was bigger than life. I tried to explain to them that I couldn’t dance. I have always been one of the worst dancers that God has ever put upon this earth.”
“Do not neglect to bring your revolver, Russell. It may be needed, and it does us no good in your drawer with that disgusting cheese."
"My lovely Stilton; it's almost ripe, too. I do hope Mr. Thomas enjoys it."
"Any riper and it will eat through the woodwork and drop into the room below."
"You envy me my educated tastes."
"That I will not honour with a response. Get out the door, Russell.”
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