Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

63 Sourced Quotes

I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
Happiness was useless to me. It was heartache that filled my purse. What happy man has need of Shakespeare?

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

Jennifer Donnelly
You can't argue with the dead, no matter what you say, they always have the last word.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

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

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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!

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

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

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

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

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

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

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

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

Jennifer Donnelly
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.

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

Jennifer Donnelly
The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.

Jennifer Donnelly