Jennifer Donnelly
Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge out your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only silence. Indifference. But merely stand looking at the playbills, sighing because your name is not on them, and the devil himself appears at your elbow full of sympathy and suggestions. And that's why I did it....Because God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.Collection: Grief
He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.Collection: Strong
He's wearing boots, a kilt, and a long-sleeve tee. No coat, even though it's December. Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.Collection: Beautiful
I have done this—made the sad prince laugh. Made his grieving parents smile. None but me. Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.Collection: Love
There was a basket at her feet. She reached into it and lifted out the head of a young woman, a marquise. She wore Bourbon white to her death, but wears the tricolor now - white cheeks, blue lips, red dripping from her neck. Long live the revolution.Collection: Blue
When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Daughter
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.Collection: Forever
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.Collection: Book
Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.Collection: Hook
Namaste. It was a Nepalese greeting. It meant: The light within me bows to the light within you.Collection: Light
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.Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Doors
Every heart is made of stories.Collection: Heart
DNA tells you all the secrets of life,’ he used to say. Except for one—how to live it.Collection: Dna
I think your vision gets better as you get older.Collection: Thinking
Airports should all belong to the same country. The country of Crappacia. Or Bleakovania. Or Suckitan.Collection: Country
Be careful what you show the world. You never know when the wolf is watching.Collection: World
Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, eitherCollection: Beautiful
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.Collection: Mom
Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them.Collection: Liars
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.Collection: Memories
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.Collection: Hurt
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.Collection: Stupid
Who needs make-believe monsters when there are so many real ones.Collection: Real
But words are more powerful than anything.Collection: Powerful
Funny, 'ow you can 'old a jewel in your 'and, and toss it away, and not even know what you 'ad until it's gone.Collection: Jewels
I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.Collection: Character
It is hope, not despair, that undoes us all.Collection: Despair
And Robespierre, the Incorruptible, who loved us so much he cut off our heads so we would not be troubled by too many thoughts.Collection: Cutting
...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.Collection: Teenager
She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.Collection: Insecure
There is a ghost here. A lonely, heartbroken spirit. The ghost of everything that could've been and never was.Collection: Heartbroken
A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.Collection: Hands
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.Collection: Inspirational
Make them care, Mattie,' she said softly. 'And don't you ever be sorry.' -Emily WilcoxCollection: Sorry
Sometimes, when you catch someone unaware at just the right time and in just the right light, you can catch sight of what they will be.Collection: Light
Voice is not just the sound that comes from your throat, but the feelings that come from your words.Collection: Voice
The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.Collection: Genius
For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Past
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.Collection: Memories
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.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Hands
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.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Kings
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.Collection: Past
Because just for a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, I'm not alone.Collection: Hurt
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. PleaseCollection: Sadness