Anne Ursu Quotes

This is what happens on journeys - the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for.

Hazel shrugged. She heard Bobby's voice in her head and wondered why it was she who was not allowed to hurt anyone.

She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went along, gaining strength for her final battle. All she was doing was losing things, one thing at a time.

There are differences between facts and truths. Facts are something you now in your brain; truths are things you know in your heart.

Hazel could not explain that she had forgotten, that there was Jack and soul-sucking villains, and sometimes you are too scratchy to remember the things you are supposed to do, even if you do feel really bad about it later.

Now, the world is more than it seems to be. You know this, of course, because you read stories. You understand that there is the surface and then there are all the things that glimmer and shift underneath it. And you know that not everyone believes in those things, that there are people - a great many people - who believe the world cannot be any more than what they can see with their eyes. But we know better.

This morning, as Charlotte approached the brick facade of Hartnett, she found herself overcome with a great sense of dread. It hit her with a strange and sudden force, and she had an overwhelming urge to turn back, get into bed and not go out for about three weeks. She stopped in her tracks. The feeling itself was alarming to Charlotte - was she sensing something? Something dangerous? And was it something supernatural or just middle school? Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

We're starting with the villain," Martin interjected. "Because they are the most fun.

This was not [him]. It was a thing, with all the [him]-ness gone from it. Death takes the person and leaves his shell behind, like a hollowed-out tree.

Now she would be part girl, part hardening gray sludge. And no one would notice the difference.

You see," the lord explained, "everyone else has them. You wouldn't want your child to be the only one who had flaws. What would it be like for them?

She looked at her shelves, filled with books in which the bad stuff that happened to people was caused by things like witches who lured people into the woods. In a weird way, the world seemed to make more sense that way.

The house felt strange. Altered. Like someone had come in during the day and shrunk all the furniture just a tiny bit.

School was very easy, it turned out, if you just disconnected your heart.

He lifted his hand to knock, but then he stopped. He could go neither forward nor back, so he simply stayed that way - hand frozen in the air.

Her father said she was a princess. He did not see that she was a brave knight.

This is nothing. And you are nothing.

She took another step, and stumbled. The ground was plummeting downward now.

You are nothing. There was a starving girl. You gave her things and then left her like a beggar on the street, and for what?

There was a couple in the cottage. You could have given them something, but you left. And for what?

There was a dancing girl in the marketplace. You could have helped her, but you left. And for what?

There was a boy and his bird sister. He helped you, and you gave him nothing.

There was a swanskin, and you thought it might make you beautiful.

There were red shoes, and you thought they might make you graceful.

There was a threshold and a magical woods, and you thought they might make you a hero.

There was a boy, and he was your best friend.

Your father left you. You left your mother.

Come, the wind said, and I will blow you away.

Come, the snow said, and I will bury you.

Come, the cold said, and I will embrace you.

Come. Come.

And so she did.

She could have taken root. She wanted to be a Rose, somebody's Rose, their Rose - and she would have been company for the flowers. She had new memories to give them, new people to tell them of, people who would help tend to them and keep them. But they warned her. They saved her.
Hazel was nobody's Rose. For better or for worse.

The apprentice's name was Wolf, because sometimes the universe is an unsubtle place.

I believe that the world isn't always what we can see ... I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe that goodness wins out ... So, if someone's changed overnight - by witch curse or poison apple or were-turtle - you have to show them what's good. You show them love. That works a surprising amount of the time.

If shadows were caused by the interplay between light and Life, a child's was still forming. An adult's was inextricably bound to his body, but a child had a tenuous relationship to his own permanence, and thus, his own shadow.

They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that's the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king.

The Asterians didn't call themselves anything special, because when everyone else refers to you as the shining people, you really don't have to do it yourself.

At each step there is a small moment of transformation that cannot be overlooked or rushed. And these moments should not be, because they are beautiful.

Hazel knew her mother really meant I hope there is something you were dying to do at school today, that you are learning to love it there, and if you are not learning to love it there, can you please try harder? Because her mom seemed to think it was the sort of thing Hazel could choose to do, like she could choose to understand the rules when they weren't even written in her language, like she could choose to make herself fit when she was so clearly shaped all wrong.

No one took her seriously because she was small and feathered, a strange little dino-bird, but she had a sickle claw and she was not afraid to use it.

It turned out she did not need the compass. It was easy to head in the other direction from the lair of the witch. All you had to do was move away from the thing pulling at you.

Fiercely original and uncommonly lovely, The Witch's Boy is equal parts enchanting and haunting. Kelly Barnhill is master of truly potent and unruly magic; luckily for readers, she chooses to use her powers for good.

They said words they did not mean, and their conversations seemed to follow all kinds of rules - rules that no one has ever explained to Oscar.

You can't just kill a swan and wrap yourself in its skin, you know. It takes something from you. In her case it took the thing that she wanted most.

It snowed right before Jack stopped talking to Hazel, fluffy white flakes big enough to show their crystal architecture, like perfect geometric poems.

Jack hesitated still, and Hazel wanted to say something comforting, give him some bright plastic flowers of words, but Jack would see them for what they were. Jack knew how to see things.

People feared snowstorms once. Hazel read about this all the time. Pioneers opened their front doors and saw they'd been entombed in snow overnight. They walked across malevolent swirling whiteness and did not know if they would survive. Nature can destroy us in a blink. We live on only at its pleasure.
That was what looking at the witch was like.

There is something in the magic we have that is greater than the magic we can do.

Teachers loved to say people had potential; that's what teachers did to keep themselves from getting canned. What were they supposed to say-I'm sorry, your kid has no promise whatsoever? She's utterly mediocre in every way?

The words kept coming and he could not stop them, not while Callie was standing there so indecipherably, and so he was going to keep talking until he used up all the words there were and then no one would be able to talk to anyone else anymore and then all anyone would have left were one another's unintelligible faces, and maybe some weird gesturing, too, and it would be all Oscar's fault.

He could still escape - the fear was in front of him, and all he had to do was wrench free and run in the other direction. But he kept walking forward, straight into its embrace.

She did not know how to react, for when your heart has been poisoned and someone picks a dandelion for you - because it is bright and yellow and you seem like you could use something like that - all you can do is contemplate the funny ways of weeds.

But I can tell you this," he continued. "The white witch doesn't feel things the way we do, do you understand? She's all ice. That is her whole point."
A palace of ice and a heart to match. "I don't understand. Why would people go looking for her? Why would they want to go with her?"
Ben sat back. He looked at Hazel searchingly, sadly. His shoulders rose and fell. "Sometimes," he said slowly, "it seems like it would be easier to give yourself to the ice.

She saw signs of another village in the distance - she smelled smoke and saw the faint glow of something like civilization. But there was nothing for her there. She had to go get Jack now, and anyway, she was safer out here with the wolves.

She didn't know the answer. But there had to be a way. There was always a way.

Something was wrong with him - and down deep he'd known his whole life. Maybe the wards had even said something. (You are not right, boy.) Maybe the other children had. (What's wrong with you?) Maybe it had happened while he watched one child after another walk off with a family from the Eastern Villages, with a merchant or a farmer. (You know no one will ever take you, right?) Maybe he'd even said it to himself.

I've seen middle grade books criticized by adult readers for leaving things for the reader to figure out, for not having perfect happily-ever-after endings. They get knocked for being too depressing, for using too many big words, for featuring parental characters who are too clueless. Girl protagonists are "too angry" or "too self-absorbed." The issues raised are "too heavy," the books "too earnest," "too quiet," "too hard," "too far-reaching," "too strange," and it is all too too much for the reader.

Except it's never the readers themselves saying these things.

Our critical discourse in middle grade is sometimes much more about what the reviewer believes children's books should be rather than about engaging with the book itself and the literature as a whole. When we say a book is "too sad," "too scary," "too complicated;" when we demand that endings are perfectly happy and all tied up; when we demand that the themes not be too weighty or the characters not face too much hardship; we are projecting our own biases onto the book, and using them to prescribe what books for this age range can or cannot do. This is nannying, not literary criticism - and it doesn't give kids much credit.

She had believed that because someone needed saving they were savable.

She'd been to Narnia, Wonderland, Hogwarts, Dictionopolis. She had tessered, fallen through the rabbit hole, crossed the ice bridge into the unknown world beyond.

Something rose in Oscar's chest, like a flower blossoming all at once. It grew until it filled him and threatened to spill over everywhere. The words [he] spoke touched a longing so deep Oscar hadn't even known it was there.

Oscar leaned in, eyes wide. 'He's keeping me,' he whispered to the kitten.
Pebble chirped. Oscar's eyes flicked to the books underneath his bed. They called out to him: Misfit. Orphan. Idiot.
Oscar coughed and shifted his eyes back to Pebble. 'He thinks I can work the shop ... He said he knew I could do it.'
Wolf: He didn't see you work the shop. He doesn't know. Just wait until he hears.
'He wants me to do the best I can.'
Wolf: If only he knew how bad that was. He'll know soon.
Oscar clenched his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut ... 'I'm not going to disappoint him,' Oscar said. He repeated himself once more, in case the words themselves had any power. 'I'm not.

Nature can destroy us in a blink. We live on only at its pleasure.

Jack believed in something - he believed in white witches and sleighs pulled by wolves, and in the world the trees obscured. He believed that there were better things in the woods. He believed in palaces of ice and hearts to match. Hazel had, too. Hazel had believed in woodsmen and magic shoes and swanskins and the easy magic of a compass. She had believed that because someone needing saving they were savable. She had believed in these things, but not anymore. And this is why she had to rescue Jack, even though he might not hear what she had to tell him.

Somebody sniggered. From Somewhere int he back of the room someone else sneered, "Yeah, Hazel," which was not the greatest insult ever, but one thing Hazel had learned at her new school was when it comes to insults it's the thought that counts

But if you were Charlotte, and you had been feeling that life was some cosmic joke that had no punchline, and in the space of a moment you had gone from being Charlotte-without-a-kitten to being Charlotte-with-a-kitten, you too would have found it nothing short of remarkable.

This is what it is to live in the world. You have to give yourself over to the cold, at least a little bit.

It's all going to be okay. She would like to hear that now, even if it was a lie. Because some lies are beautiful. Stories do not tell you that.

It would not hurt, after all, to walk into the woods.

A sick-hued darkness overtook Hazel. There was ground, somewhere, and somewhere beyond that there was a palace, and somewhere beyond that was a witch, and somewhere beyond her was a boy who did not want her to come, and she would not come, could not come, because she could not defeat the winter. She was going to collapse here. She would fail.

I think if you'll look around, my boy,' he said gently, 'you'll find that no one is quite right. But we all do the best we can.

How she hated the weakness of her human heart.

Hugging himself, Oscar leaned against the pantry wall. For two days all he had wanted was for Caleb to come back, and now he was back and Oscar had made a mess of things: he had angered half the customers and confused the other half, and the coin boxes did not look as they should, and [rich, noble] people were complaining about him, and he couldn't look at anybody, and [redacted] was dead, and Oscar was odd.
'What if he doesn't keep me?

Jack was the only person she knew with an imagination, at least a real one. The only tea parties he'd have were ones in Wonderland, or the Arctic, or in the darkest reaches of space. He was the only person who saw things for what they could be instead of just what they were. He saw what lived beyond the edges of the things your eyes took in. And though they eventually grew out of Wonderland Arctic space-people tea parties, that essential thing remained the same. Hazel fit with Jack.

It's a plié. You do it on all the positions. It's very good for dramatic moments.

She just eyed them coolly, as if they were nothing to her, as if their nothingness surprised and slightly repelled her.

That was the point where she was supposed to sound tough, like she was someone to be reckoned with, like she was the sort of person witches should listen to. Was this really her plan? She sounded like a child.

Hazel understood. Being grown up meant doing what grown-ups wanted you to do. it meant sacrificing your imagination for rules. It meant sitting quietly in you chair while your best friend is helicoptered off for emergency eye surgery. It meant letting people say whatever they wanted to you.

There is a way the truth hits you, both hard and gentle at the same time. It punches you in the stomach as it puts its loving arm around your shoulder. Yes, I am terrible to behold, the truth says. But you suspected it all along, didn't you? And isn't better, now that you know? Now, at least, it all makes sense.

She wore weird baggy clothes and seemed like the sort of person who might tesser in some dark and stormy night.

Ladders were not inherently dangerous, he told himself, people climbed them every day, and most of them lived.