Pamela Dean Quotes

Seeming and knowing made hideous faces at one another across the breadth of her mind.

Look," said Janet, irritated, "if the thing you liked best to do in the world was read, and somebody offered to pay you room and board and give you a liberal arts degree if you would just read for four years, wouldn't you do it?

Their shadows sported over the hills like cats, chasing the sunlight over sparkling granite and dull slate, the bright dry grass and the small hidden gleams of water.

So easily she broke her word. The fire did not cower down nor the wind rise; her heart beat on quietly. Maybe it was more like a disease than an injury: the seed was sown but not yet sprouted. Perjury, shapeshifting: which was more mortal?

The library was ... scattered with odd cushions and strange padded built-in furniture added a few years ago to placate the rioting students of the time, who could never seem to make up their minds whether they were angriest about Viet Nam, about being made to learn a foreign language, or about being made to sit at a hard wooden desk while they did it. The College, being unable to do anything about Viet Nam and unwilling to do anything about the foreign language requirement, had reformed the furniture in the library.

It did occur to me that the effect of good literature may be as dizzying as that of alcohol.

So he decided he would never listen to anybody he knew? That's just like someone in a fairy tale.'
Knowing he had given his trust amiss, how could he bestow it again?'
That's foolish. Did he expect never to make any mistakes?

The wind pounced on them hard. It had blown some of the cloud away and stretched the rest across the sky like rags on a loom to make a rug. A blue and white and gray rug like that would b pretty, thought Arry. But how do I know that? Do I know it?

Peg was involved in a common form of senior-year panic that caused its victims to exhibit permanent distraction and to take up residence in the library.