Emma Donoghue Quotes

Sometimes words were like glass that broke in her mouth.

People move around so much in the world, things get lost.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.

For some people, she thought, trials were only temporary; they sailed towards happiness through the roughest weather.

It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew.

The worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots might last ten years, at best, but knowledge was eternal.

For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.

In the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd," he said pleasantly.

The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life.

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.

The crow flew closer, as if to hear its praises.

Daffy bent down suddenly, and picked a small startled white flower. "Anemone," he said, handing it over; he made her repeat the word until she had it right. "Find me a silk to match that.

The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.

And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood.

...by her family circle. That was my phrase, one that could include me by some stretch of the imagination; 'circle' sounded too symmetrical, but it would have to do.

Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.

Any subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory.