Ann Rinaldi Quotes

The house was so quiet, as if everyone had been spirited out of sight. I had a feeling of moving through time itself. I saw myself as a small, scurrying animal rushing into my future. But I was not afraid. ~ Ann Rinaldi

What it love, you ask. Dear child, love is like the light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime. You must experience the first in order to appreciate the second. ~ Ann Rinaldi

You are a man without a heart, Dr. Leddell.
And you, Mary Cooper, are a meddler. A woman can be forgiven for many transgressions but not that.
I have been called worse. And by people I hold in more esteem than you.
Ha! I pity the poor man unfortunate enough to marry you someday. He writes his own ticket to hell.
If he does, then I'll make that hell as pleasant a place for him as I know how. But I won't deceive him and tell him it's heaven, then stoke the fires behind his back and cover it all with the scent of lilacs. ~ Ann Rinaldi

A person has to be strong in life. A person must practice strength, even if they don't feel it. ~ Ann Rinaldi

My heart stopped beating, I know it did. Hearts do that sometimes, for just a beat or two. Then they start up again. But they never regain those missed beats, and nothing is ever the same afterwards. Life proceeds to a different cadence, and never again as harmonious as before ~ Ann Rinaldi

He is not a punishing God, Lizzy. That is the mistake most people make, thinking He sits with an account book and a big fist, waiting to punish us. He is not a wrathful God but a loving God who made each of us and loved us since we were in our mother's womb ~ Ann Rinaldi

I thanked him and said goodnight. I left him there and went into the house. Maria was playing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic. ~ Ann Rinaldi

I didn't know how to say goodbye. Words were stupid. They said so little. Yet they opened up holes you could fall into and never climb out of again. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Little things about the Pilgrims surprised me. For instance, the fact that the first duel in America was fought at Plymouth by two teenaged boys over a girl. The life the Pilgrims led in Holland before coming to America also surprised me. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Because I had already resolved that if you're afraid of love, your heart will break anyway, only in not half so nice a fashion as it does when you let somebody love you. ~ Ann Rinaldi

As a child growing up in World War II, I was very moved and stirred by what was going on, but I distanced myself from history. I regarded history as just one more subject. ~ Ann Rinaldi

I will stand by you. You must not be afraid. This is a brave land, Susanna, founded by brave people who never shrank from their duty or their vision of freedom. But this land has a future only if each of us stands up for what is right when it is given us to do so. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Sometimes it take courage to leave. ~ Ann Rinaldi

... There was something regal about her. She carried herself like she was wearing pink moire. And that powerless complexion glowed. Watching her, it came to me that she must have some Yankee strength that didn't need frippery. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Most of our miseries we bring on ourselves. And they're the sum of our own stupidity. ~ Ann Rinaldi

The people who founded America, who fought for its freedom, did not look to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. They took matters into their own hands and answered only to God and their peers. In today's world, sacrifice and hardship are not in the everyday language, and instant gratification is foremost. ~ Ann Rinaldi

I find American girls have a spirit and honesty about them that is most refreshing. ~ Ann Rinaldi

War takes a terrible toll on people, on families. And if war doesn't, then just ordinary life does. It changes them forever. ~ Ann Rinaldi

He had to put down the sacks of sugar and coffee then. Because, though he could hold off a mob at the depot with no trouble, even he couldn't kiss a girl with his arms full of contraband. ~ Ann Rinaldi

I earn my own respect," I told Emilie. "I don't ride the coattails of someone else. ~ Ann Rinaldi

When a woman's face is wrinkled
And her hairs are sprinkled,
With gray, Lackaday!
Aside she's cast,
No one respect will pay;
Remember, Lasses, remember.
And while the sun shines make hay:
You must not expect in December,
The flowers you gathered in May. ~ Ann Rinaldi

There are different kinds of love, Sarah. I feel one kind of love for your father. A special kind. Another kind for Warren. And still a different kind for you children.' She smiled at me. 'Heaven rue the day we can't feel love for one another. I wouldn't want to live in such a world, would you? ~ Ann Rinaldi

Doing good doesn't always make you feel good. I don't care what they tell you in church. ~ Ann Rinaldi

There are forces in the world that we cannot see, and they are for good as well as for evil. And I sensed, with an inner certainty, that the forces of good were far more powerful than the forces of evil. ~ Ann Rinaldi

The most important thing we ever have to learn in life is to live with our choices. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Her face was a map I'd like to trace. I'd love to see where it would take me. And I'd love to see where she had been. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Two women, one nigra and one white, whose voices were part of me, whose hands had comforted, soothed, and taught. One a pine-knot torch and the other a scented beeswax candle against the darkness of my ignorance and fear. Both gone. ~ Ann Rinaldi

So we gave the afternoon some sanity after all and I wonder, Uncle Andrew, is life sane, as we tried to make it? Or is it insanity, as it was yesterday on the Gerard plantation? And why don't more people try to make it sane?
Or if it is full of sanity for them, why do they try to rip that sanity to pieces and impose their form of insanity? Can you help me understand? ~ Ann Rinaldi

I think he is just an old man who still believes in his country, his old Germany. we all wanted a new Germany, but not at the cost of this madman, Hitler. Your grandpa can't be blamed for loving his old Germany. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Words said can never be recalled. So it is best, oftimes, not to speak too quickly. Yet words left unsaid are worse. We wear them like weights around our hearts. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Because that's how intelligent people conduct themselves. They allow for each other's differences. ~ Ann Rinaldi

When I write I am the real me. ~ Ann Rinaldi

I know now why God gave us babies. They require constant attention, of course. They make messes and disturb the peace, but their cuteness and smiles are something the only reminder of God we have in the house. ~ Ann Rinaldi

Are you afraid of falling, baby?
No, I'm afraid of landing.
[He's laughing, and I'm smiling.]
Stupid idiot smile, don't you know what comes next? ~ Ann Aguirre

Maybe I grew up too fast, maybe that's my trouble. I feel so lost out here ... hung up between two worlds; half-kid and half-adult, half-boy and half-girl. And sometimes it seems like I get the dirty side of both. ~ Ann Bannon

Most people in the Tea Party are nice, but that hasn't stopped liberals from hating them. ~ Ann Coulter

The truth doesn't make you vulnerable - concealing it does. ~ Ann McMan

For heaven's sake, dear, he's a man. Men aren't very good at analyzing themselves, you know. ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

Some people hate the smell of hospitals. I hate the smell of jails and prisons, all the same: stale cigarette smoke, Pine-Sol, urine, sweat, and dust. ~ Ann Rule

Mythology contains a rich history of legendary weapons, most famously 'Excalibur,' weapons that could only be used by the pure of heart. ~ Ann Nocenti

On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it. ~ Ann Hood

She wondered if maybe tragedy was what it took to make your heart capable of admitting a new member. ~ Ann Brashares

No torture has yet been devised that could get a liberal to mention the poor, beleaguered Kurds dancing in the streets because Saddam is gone. ~ Ann Coulter

Reading was such a formative part of my childhood (along with 'Loony Tunes'), that it is difficult to pin point the most influential book. But, under an interrogation light I would probably have to say 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. ~ Ann-Marie MacDonald

Maybe he's got a plan for proving that he was a victim of unethical research practices. Who knows? I can't begin to guess his objectives but I can promise you that there is nothing you or I or modern para-pharmaceuticals can do for him. We can't fix the monsters. ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

It's a great affirmation of the possibility of overcoming conflict through reason and good will. ~ Mary Ann Glendon

One night last year when my father and I were eating supper at 6.17 p.m., I said to him, "Did you have a favourite?"
"A favourite what?" asked my father.
"A favourite foster mother."
"Yes, I did," said my father. "Her name was Hannah Pederson."
"That is very interesting," I told him, recalling Mrs Leibler's conversational tips, "because 'Hannah' is a kind of word called a palindrome. That means you can spell it the same way whether you start at the beginning or the end. My name is not a palindrome because if you spell it backwards it's E-S-O-R. But it does have a homonym."
My father said, "Don't get started on homonyms, Rose."
So I said, "Did you have any favourite foster brothers or sisters?"
"Yes," said my father after a moment.
"How interesting," I replied. "Did any of their names have homonyms? ~ Ann M. Martin

his big hands, presumably to stop ~ Ann Troup

I think in the immediate days after 9/11, the administration acted very, very well. I liked the decisiveness of it. ~ Ann Richards

Nothing's impossible. It's what you decide your limits are. ~ Lori-Ann Muenzer

Ann: I feel like I should read verses and be comforted. But it doesn't happen. ~ K. Howard Joslin

Ramona wasn't at home anywhere. She felt like a spy in life and the ending of every great book and each orgasm, and the sight of every homeless shopping bag lady infected her with a titanic yearning for the world to make an unscheduled stop. ~ Ann Druyan

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality. ~ Ann Beattie

I will share one of them with you now: most people don't want trouble, but frightened people are liable to do very dangerous things. ~ Ann Leckie

I think that if you are sticking to the text, essentially, you're not trying to write your own version of it. I mean, of course, it is your own version of it. And every translator would probably have a different version. But I think that that's what keeps the writers from being individual in English. They may be my English, but I don't think that Ferrante sounds like Levi. ~ Ann Goldstein

Ask and it shall be given you,'" I began. "'Seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' We have the same message in the Book of Saint John," I said, sounding for all the world like a preacher...."
Well, but how could I just stop there? Those words were worse than nothing if I didn't tell what they meant to Grandpa. Looking at the long rough box, I spoke timid, in a mumbled voice. Not preachified at all. "Grandpa didn't think Jesus meant, by that, that we should ast God for things, or for special favors. He said we could trust that in the nature of things, without astin', we'll get lots of blessin's and happy surprises and maybe a miracle or two. When Jesus said ast and you'll get it, He meant things of the spirit, not the flesh. Right now for instance, I could ast, 'Lord please raise Grandpa from the dead,' but it wouldn't happen. But I can say, 'Please, God, comfort me,' and I'll get heart's ease. Grandpa said Jesus meant us to ast for hope, forgiveness, and all that. Ast, 'Hep us not be scared, hep us not be greedy, give us courage to try." I was really carried away. "Ast any such and God will give it to you. But don't ast Him not to let fire burn, or say spare me from death. At least, uh, that's what Grandpa said. ~ Olive Ann Burns

You don't mean it," he said mournfully. Not at all, she thought. "Yes, I do," she said. ~ Ann Brashares

A secret is only a secret as long as only one person knows it ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

Have you ever heard the expression: Walk a mile in my shoes, and then judge me? And write your own books. ~ Ann Rule

In 2011, as American forces left Iraq, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders made public a Defense Department report prepared at his request: 300 defense contractors in Iraq providing products or services to the Pentagon had been involved in fraud, including Lockheed Martin and Northrup-Grumman, both rewarded with even bigger multibillion dollar contracts after paying small fines. During the decade of war, the Pentagon had forked over to the top 37 fraudulent corporations alone $1.1 trillion. ~ Ann Jones

Because we lived only a mile outside the town of Mayfield, I was acutely conscious of being country. I felt inferior to people in town because we had to grow our food and make our clothes. ~ Bobbie Ann Mason

For peace to take hold, one person must first stop fighting. ~ Ann Aguirre

Don't give up. Keep going. there is always a chance that you stumble onto something terrific. I have never heard of anyone stumbling over anything while he was sitting down ~ Ann Landers

I'm so afraid my touch will scare you away. But I'm So. Fucking. Selfish. Because it doesn't matter whether you need my love anymore …" He released a sob and so did she. "Because I need to love you." Drawing in a ragged breath, he shrugged. "It's all I know," he whispered. ~ Jewel E. Ann

Rock and roll is about desire, about wanting something better. I think my characters all want something better. My understanding of the rock and roll dream is that a kid in an isolated place or a small town or an underprivileged world could transcend it somehow. ~ Bobbie Ann Mason