Margaret Peterson Haddix Quotes

17 Sourced Quotes

And yet, I felt a surge of exhilaration just thinking about that night. Not just because I'd met the prince and fallen in love and started on my course toward happiness ever after, but because I'd made something happen. I'd done something everybody had told me I couldn't. I'd changed my life all by myself. Having a fairy godmother would have ruined everything.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I snorted "oh, beauty. What's that good for?" Mary stared, her eyes round. "It won you the prince, did it not?" I snorted again, I prefer to think that he was captivated by my charming personality." I giggled to let Mary know I was trying to make fun of myself.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
Unlike my mother, my father does not cry quietly. His wails roll out like a wave of pain, and I scramble to roll up my window. My mother cannot hear that. I cannot bear to hear it myself. I am not used to my father's crying. I've had no time to harden my heart against him.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
A thousand times today I've started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, "Can you tell me...? But then I'd look into the front seat, at my mother's silent shaking, my father's grim profile, the mournful bags under his eyes, and all the questions I might ask seemed abusive. Assault and battery, a question mark used like a club. My parents are old and fragile. I'd have to heartless to want to hurt them.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father - burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin - doesn't seem to belong on it.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
He looked at the piles of food again, and it was like he was seeing it with new eyes. "This is wrong", he thought, "Letting food rot while people die of hunger. It's evil.".... He breathed in the too-sweet smell of rotting food, "I can stop this evil.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I like to know what I'm celebrating before I put on a party hat.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people you hate. But you must still dare to love. The rewards are worth far more than the risks.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
Amazing, Yetta thought. Back home I couldn't have chosen my own husband. And here I'm thinking about choosing presidents, governors, mayors, laws..

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I don't know what you two are up to," Hobart said. "But you be careful now, you hear? Don't do anything I wouldn't do." "Well now, that doesn't restrict us very much, does it?" Mark teased back.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I wished I'd known weeks ago that we didn't have to be chaperoned. I remembered my old daydreams: the prince and I, alone together, cuddling and whispering... I probably would have wised up and brocken the engagement sooner.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
It'd be like looking for a needle in a burning haystack.' 'Oh, I've done that,' Mark said airily. 'It's a game we used to play, after we got rid of all our livestock and didn't need our hay no more. You throw a match into the haystack, give the fire a three-second head start, and begin looking. You can find the needle every time if you work quick

Margaret Peterson Haddix
The sudden silence is horrifying, and it seems to catch my mother off guard. A tiny whimper escapes her, the sound amplified in the stillness. Surely, my father hears her now; surely he and I can't go on pretending she isn't crying.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
I wish, peevishly, that he didn't know anything about how soldiers sleep, how they protect their fellow soldiers. It would be nicer if I could share the cloaks warmth with him, if we could lie with our faces together, whispering into the night.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
Governments will rise, and governments will fall, and man will do evil to man, and all we can do is turn our hearts to good.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Government justifies keeping everyone else in poverty because people seem to work the hardest when they're right on the edge of survival.

Margaret Peterson Haddix
Even the most independent people sometimes needed help. And if I'd learned nothing else from my life thus far, it was that you don't always end up where you think you're going.

Margaret Peterson Haddix