Top 106 Quotes & Sayings by Jennifer Donnelly

She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.

The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.

I'm wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it's stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.

They sat quietly together for a few minutes, Joe holding Fiona's hand, Fiona sniffling. No flowery words, no platitudes passed between them. Joe would have done anything to ease her suffering, but he knew nothing he might do, or say, could. Her grief would run its course, like a fever, and release her when it was spent. He would not shush her or tell her it was God's will and that her da was better off. That was rubbish and they both knew it. When something hurt as bad as this, you had to let it hurt. There were no shortcuts.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.

There is a ghost here. A lonely, heartbroken spirit. The ghost of everything that could've been and never was.

The feeling that you get.... when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.

The guitar's still around me. I slip it off and put it down. I want to feel him. To feel his breath on my neck. The warmth of his skin. To feel something other than sadness. Hold me, I tell him silently. Hold me here. To this place. This life. Make me want you. Want this. Want something. Please

My father had put these things on the table. I looked at him standing by the sink. He was washing his hands, splashing water on his face. My mamma left us. My brother, too. And now my feckless, reckless uncle had as well. My pa stayed, though. My pa always stayed. I looked at him. And saw the sweat stains on his shirt. And his big, scarred hands. And his dirty, weary face. I remembered how, lying in my bed a few nights before, I had looked forward to showing him my uncle's money. To telling him I was leaving. And I was so ashamed.

On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They spilled over my tongue and spilled out my mouth. And because of them, I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.

Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever?

Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them.

Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.

Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either

I play until my fingertips are raw. Until I rip a nail and bleed on the strings. Until my hands hurt so bad I forget my heart does.

Every heart is made of stories.

I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.

She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.

There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I. The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness. Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.

He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.

We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.

Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway.

I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you.

It's only the body that's gone. Only the body. There's a part that doesn't go in the ground, a part that stays inside you forever.

The world goes on, as stupid and brutal as tomorrow as it was today. And though I am shuddering with pain, and twisting with pain, and sobbing with pain, i laugh.Because I know now. I know the answer. I know the truth. Oh,dead man, you are dead wrong, I tell him.Can't you see? The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I [do not. I do not.]

Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.

Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.

I've always admired your rather formidable will, your refusal to back away from difficulties, but sometimes strength isn't about perseverance. Sometimes it's about knowing when to quit.

Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I'm not alone.

He loves the sparkling fountains and their cascades and says the strangest things as he watches them. they look like stars breaking. Or, They look like Mama's diamonds. Or, They look like all the souls in heaven.

I will go out again this very night with my rockets and fuses. I will blow them straight out of their comfortable beds. Blow the rooftops off their houses. Blow the black, wretched night to bits. I will not stop. For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.

I love you, too... I won't ever leave you again. I promise. I kept that promise. For love him I did. For nearly two years I spent almost every waking hour with him. Until he was taken from me. But I never left him. And I never will.

Because I'm on the phone, Mom!" "Fooling around with your friends again! Who is that?" "Ahmadinejad." "Oh, my goodness! What is he saying?" "That he wants to see Jeezy at the Beacon tonight. Putin's going too. He scalped a ticket from Kim Jong Il. All tha gangstas are going." "Don't be so fresh, young man!" "Gotta go," he says to me. "Enemy forces have dropped a Momshell." "Fall back, solider. Over and out.

I just love historical fiction.

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.

They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.

DNA tells you all the secrets of life,’ he used to say. Except for one—how to live it.

Yeah. Sure. My brother's dead. My mother's insame. Hey, let's have a crepe.

Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.

Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up.

Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it? The one inside, I mean. You can’t change history. You can’t change the world. All you can ever change is yourself.

Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.

Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.

...Listen to your own thoughts and feelings very carefully, be aware of your observations, and learn to value them. When you're a teenager—and even when you're older—lots of people will try to tell you what to think and feel. Try to stand still inside all of that and hear your own voice. It's yours and only yours, it's unique and worth of your attention, and if you cultivate it properly, it might just make you a writer.

Airports should all belong to the same country. The country of Crappacia. Or Bleakovania. Or Suckitan.

History is a Rorschach test, people. What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.

I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I'm lost in the music. Until I am the music--notes and chords, the melody and harmony. It hurts, but it's okay because when I'm the music, I'm not me. Not sad. Not afraid. Not desperate. Not guilty.

The greenest of pastures are right here on earth.

I think your vision gets better as you get older.

A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.

When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.

Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.

Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.

Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.

The King walks. He nods. His glance is like God's touch - under it all things spring to life. A wave of his hand and a hundred musicians tear into the Handel, making a sound you've never heard before, and never will again. A sound that goes through you, through flesh and bone, and reorders the very beat of your heart.

You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone." I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out. She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone.