Jennifer Donnelly Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.]

...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.

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.

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.

I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.

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

Every heart is made of stories.

There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.

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