Jennifer Donnelly
Meet me where the sky touches the sea. Wait for me where the world begins.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Mean
For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.Collection: Strong Women
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.Collection: Kings
Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway.Collection: Bravery
We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.Collection: Sin
Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.Collection: House
He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.Collection: Endure
Why is it that weeks and months and years go by so quickly, all in a blur, but moments last forever?Collection: Years
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.Collection: Feelings
Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.Collection: Kings
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.Collection: Strength
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.Collection: Hurt
Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Hurt
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.]Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Perseverance
There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.Collection: Advantage
She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Blow
The greenest of pastures are right here on earth.Collection: Earth
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.Collection: Running
Only the hopeless love God.Collection: Hopeless
Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.Collection: Devil
There is only one thing I fear now-love. For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.Collection: Knows
I grew up on a mixed diet of mass and class, and I still read that way. I hate it when people apologize for what they read. Some bestsellers aren't exactly literary. So what? They're fun and rip-roaring, Who instituted the book police and why do we have to answer them? Grrrrr!Collection: Fun
The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not.Collection: Stupid
Men are the weak ones, luv. Didn't you know? Oh, you make a lot of noise, but its the women who are strong. Where it counts. In 'ere.Collection: Strong
Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?Collection: Men
Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.Collection: Promise
Because in a small dark room, a broken child lies on a filthy bed and stares up at a high window. He waits for me, too. And I—I who have failed at everything and have failed everyone—I must not, I cannot, I will not fail him.Collection: Children
Why do you write?' Because I love words and stories so much. Because I would be grief stricken every day of my life if I couldn't write. Because I'm obsessed and compelled. Because I'd be utterly useless at anything else.Collection: Grief
But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.Collection: Running
Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.Collection: Beautiful
I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.Collection: Glad
I played a role. That is what actors do. But I played it too well. I went too far. And by the time I wanted to stop, to take a bow and leave the stage, it was too late.Collection: Roles
Who knew that listening to a guy sleep could be so much deeper than sleeping with a guy.Collection: Sleep
It has an L on it. L for love. See? It's the key to the universe, Dad. You said you were looking for it. You told Mom you were. I found it for you so you don't have to look anymore. So you can come home at night.Collection: Mom
Stop yelling. If everyone’s yelling, no one can be heard.Collection: Yelling
Most people, if they were generous, were so because they thought life was short and that one must make the most of it. Sid Baxter was generous because he knew that life was long. It went on and on even when you had no use for it anymore. It was happiness, not life, that was short, and when it visited - in the form of a fine evening spent talking with a friend - he honoured it.Collection: Talking
Her grey eyes sparkled with passion as she spoke. Sid looked into them and for a second he glimpsed her soul. He saw what she was - fierce and brave. Upright. Impatient. And good. So good that she would sit covered in gore, shout at dangerous men, and keep a long, lonely vigil - all to save the likes of him. He realized she was a rare creature, as rare as a rose in winter.Collection: Lonely
You can't argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.Collection: Matter
I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.Collection: Thinking
I will rain down silver and gold for you. I will shatter the black night, break it open, and pour out a million stars. Turn away from the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and know that I am here. That I remember and hope. Open your eyes and look at the light.Collection: Stars
She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.Collection: Dream
Words fail me sometimes. I have read most every word in the Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language, but I still have trouble making them come when I want them to. Right now I want a word that describes the feeling you get – a cold sick feeling deep down inside – 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 you will never be the same again.Collection: Sick
I struggled for a long time to get anything published.Collection: Long