Eva Ibbotson Quotes

I want to live like music sounds."- Ruth ~ Eva Ibbotson

Ms. Wrack's mother, Mrs. Wrack, had been a mermaid: a proper one who lived on a rock and combed her hair and sang. But sailors had never been lured to their doom by her, partly because she looked like the back of a bus and partly because modern ships are so high out of the water that they never even saw her ~ Eva Ibbotson

Happiness is almost as good as magic for altering a person's looks. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Then she washed and dressed very attentively, putting on high-heeled court shoes, silk stockings, a black skirt and crisply ironed white blouse, because she was Viennese and one dressed properly even when one's world had ended. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just so often that they were dead, and in a book. ~ Eva Ibbotson

I must go
the aunts will be worried. Guy, I don't know if we will meet again, but
" Her voice broke and she tried again. "Sometimes, when you're alone and you look up at
" Once more, she had to stop. Then she managed, "If I cannot be anything else ... could I be your Star Sister? Could I at least be that?"
Guy dug his nails into his palms. Everything in him rose in protest at the fey, romantic conceit. He did not want her in the heavens, linked to him by some celestial whimsy, but here and now in the flesh and after the death of the flesh, her hand in his as they rose from graves like these when the last trump sounded.
"Yes," he managed to say. "You can be my Star Sister. You can at least be that. ~ Eva Ibbotson

I'm sorry you never got my note that night," said Minty. "I was arranging for us to go and live with them. You'll like that, won't you?" she asked Maia.
Maia was silent, looking down at her plate.
"Of course she will," jeered Finn. "Sergei will be able to kneel at her feet like a person in a book. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Herr Altenburg, I can't; I have vertigo.' And Marek looked at him: 'All right - I'll get the chemist to fix me something. ~ Eva Ibbotson

It was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in the lull between bursts of gunfire and accompanied the fleeing refugees who blocked the roads. It was as though the weather was preparing a glorious requiem for the death of Europe. ~ Eva Ibbotson

When you're sad, my Little Star, go out of doors. It's always better underneath the open sky. ~ Eva Ibbotson

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.
She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial A.
"Myself," said the governess in her deep gruff voice, "I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate."
"To go to the Amazon, you mean?"
"To have so many friends who were sad to see me go."
"Didn't you have friends who minded you leaving?"
Miss Minton's thin lips twitched for a moment.
"My sister's canary, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful. ~ Eva Ibbotson

One of the sisters started shaving her legs and marrying tax inspectors, so she was no good. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Adventures, once they were over, were things that had to stay inside one
that no one else could quite understand. ~ Eva Ibbotson

People make their own worlds. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Dostoyevsky was her brother, Victorian children's books her passion and though she lived, when in funds, mainly on avocado pears, she took her bath each night with a different cookery book. ~ Eva Ibbotson

As Maia turned to go, hardly believing that there could be such happiness, she heard a loud splash. Miss Minton was leaning over the side, watching the parcel she had held on her knees floating away downriver.
"What was that?" asked Maia.
Miss Minton straightened herself.
If you must know," she said, "it was my corset. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Those who think of the Amazon as a Green Hell," she read in an old book with a tattered spine, "bring only their own fears and prejudices to this amazing land. For whether a place is a hell or a heaven rests in yourself, and those who go with courage and an open mind may find themselves in Paradise. ~ Eva Ibbotson

And lying there, her hair in damp strands across her crumpled face, Harriet gave up the long, long struggle to love her father and her aunt.
It was for this loss above all that she wept. She had learned, during the long years of her childhood, to live without receiving love. To live without giving it seemed more than she could bear. ~ Eva Ibbotson

It is for England that one marries,' she said. 'For the land. ~ Eva Ibbotson

She was so intelligent that she could think herself into beauty. Intelligence ... they don't talk about it much, the poets, but when a woman is intelligent and passionate and good ... ~ Eva Ibbotson

Duty exists and it's real. It means sharing any gift or talent that you have with people who need it. It means not being afraid or selfish or tight - but open. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Please, God,' Ruth would pray, 'don't let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.'
She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler's bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall. ~ Eva Ibbotson

He then kissed her.
It was a very long time before he let her go. When he did, she looked up at him, hurt and bewilderment on her face.
"Why did you stop?" asked Tessa.
"I thought you might want to breathe," said Guy carefully.
"Breathe?" said Tessa, shocked. "I don't need to breathe when I'm with you. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls. ~ Eva Ibbotson

I think I ought to cut my hair off," said Maia, one morning, as she tore yet another tooth out of Finn's comb.
"No. That's a bad idea."
Maia looked up, surprised. "But you wanted Clovis to cut his hair."
"That was different. ~ Eva Ibbotson

For whether a place is a heaven or a hell rests in yourself, and those who go with courage may find themselves in paradise. ~ Eva Ibbotson

I met Eva Ibbotson before I became a writer myself, and was in awe of her then. ~ Berlie Doherty

One must not judge other cultures by the standars of one's one,' said Aunt Hilda ~ Eva Ibbotson

When you know what you want you usually get it. ~ Eva Ibbotson

There are those who dance the notes, and those who dance the music. ~ Eva Ibbotson

In another couple of hours we can go on board."
He looked longingly at the lighted ship, ready for her start at dawn. She looked so clean, so nice, so British…
Mr. Low came to stand beside him. "Decent bunks, decent food, people speaking English. You can't believe it."
But in spite of the relief of being on the way home, the crows were broken men. Mr. Low was still feverish, Mr. Trapwood's insect bites had spread in an infected mass over his face and neck, and neither of them could keep down their food. ~ Eva Ibbotson

As he clambered back and picked up the paddle, he was still muttering furiously in his own language and glaring at her. Without deciphering a single word, she knew he was scolding her for her carelessness, trying to explain that one had to be alert the whole time in the jungle.
"Idiota!" he said finally, and though Senhor and Senhora Olvidares in the phrase book had not used the word, Maia understood it well enough. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Would you like me to stop talking? Because I can. I have to concentrate, but it's possible ~ Eva Ibbotson

He was just drifting off to sleep when it occurred to him that perhaps the dog was not so ordinary after all. Perhaps he was someone the ogre had changed, and Ivo was going to spend the night hugging a headmaster or a tax inspector ~ Eva Ibbotson

To show too much joy in a place such as this would be unseemly but, as he padded toward her, his tail was extended in a manner which would make wagging possible should all go as expected. ~ Eva Ibbotson

It's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get in a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Do you think there'll be someone in the Xanti who'll remember your mother?"
Finn blew on the embers. "I don't know. We may not find the Xanti," he warned her.
Maia shrugged. "It doesn't matter. But if we do, will they accept me? I don't have any Indian blood."
"If they don't, we won't stay. I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I've got my gun."
"I'm not scared," said Maia. And she wasn't. She'd been scared of the nastiness of the twins and of being shut up in the Carters' bungalow, but she wasn't scared of traveling through unknown lands with a boy hardly older than she was herself. She thought perhaps she wouldn't be scared of anything ever again if she was with Finn. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Daisy offered a mosquito which bit you and gave you yellow fever. 'You turn as yellow as a lemon and then you die,' she said. ~ Eva Ibbotson

And so they played some of the world's loveliest piano music - the exiled homesick girl, the humiliated, tired old man. Not properly. Better than that. ~ Eva Ibbotson

It was too much ... the gods would not permit such joy. ~ Eva Ibbotson

She stood looking carefully at the labeled portraits Ursala had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches, and Ursala's favorite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee.
"Isn't that where the massacre was?" asked Ellen.
"Yes. I'm going to go there when I'm grown up. To Wounded Knee."
"That seems sensible," said Ellen. ~ Eva Ibbotson

The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up! ~ Eva Ibbotson

To this waltz, born in a distant, snowbound country out of longing for just such a flower-scented summer night as this, Rupert and Anna dance. They were under no illusions. The glittering chandeliers, the gold mirrors with their draped acanthus leaves, the plangent violins might be the stuff of romance, but this was no romance. It was a moment in a lifeboat before it sank beneath the waves; a walk across the sunlit courtyard towards the firing squad. This waltz was all they had. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Yet for a moment it seemed to him that the men who had dragged marble from Italy and porphyry from Portugal, who had ransacked the jungle for its rarest woods and paid their millions to build this opulent and fantastical theatre, had done so in order that a young girl with loose brown hair should move across its stage, drawing her future from its empty air. ~ Eva Ibbotson

How dare you suppose that I don't know who you are or what you are? That I don't understand what I see? Do you take me for some kind of besotted schoolboy? It is unspeakable! You could weigh as much as a hippopotamus and shave your head and wear a wig and it wouldn't make a difference to me. I never said you were beautiful. I never thought it. I said that you were you. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Well wtith a statue hermann cannot possibly fight ~ Eva Ibbotson

You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair. ~ Eva Ibbotson

When we're grown up I'll come back for you, I promise. No one can stop us then. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Maia had been sitting absolutely still on a chair in the hall, waiting.
Now she heard a loud peal on the street bell and turned to see a dark, wild-haired boy running up the steps. Taking no notice of the flustered maid, he came up to Maia.
"I'm going home, Maia," shouted Finn. "I'm going home!"
Upstairs a door had opened, and Miss Minton came slowly down the stairs, dabbing her eyes.
Then she drew herself up to her full height.
"We are all going home," she said. ~ Eva Ibbotson

What do you mean to do with Maia when you do find her?" the professor asked that night.
"Take her back to the Keminskys and never let her out of my sight again," said Miss Minton.
"She may not find it easy."
"Why on earth not? The Keminskys are the kindest people in the world."
"Yes. But she has tasted freedom. ~ Eva Ibbotson

That settles it," said Mr. Trapwood. "We're going back to the pension. We're going to pack. We're going to be on the Bishop first thing tomorrow. Sir Aubrey will have to send someone else out. Nothing is worth another day in this hellhole."
Mr. Low did not answer. He had caught a fever and was lying in the bottom of a large canoe owned by the Brothers of the São Gabriel Mission, who had arranged for the crows to be taken back to Manaus. His eyes were closed and he was wandering a little in his mind, mumbling about a boy with hair the color of the belly of the golden toad which squatted on the lily leaves of the Mamari River.
There had, of course, been no golden-haired boys; there hadn't been any boys at all. What there had been was a leper colony, run by the Brothers of Saint Patrick, a group of Irish missionaries to whom the crows had been sent.
"They're good men, the Brothers," a man on the docks had told them as they set off on their last search for Taverner's son. "They take in all sorts of strays--orphans, boys with no homes. If anyone knows where Taverner's lad might be, it'll be them."
Then he had spat cheerfully into the river because he was a crony of the chief of police and liked the idea of Mr. Low and Mr. Trapwood spending time with the Brothers, who were very holy men indeed and slept on the hard ground, and ate porridge made from manioc roots, and got up four times in the night to pray.
The Brothers' mission was on a swampy part of the r ~ Eva Ibbotson

Once the hag got upset she was apt to go downhill very fast and remember things like she was an orphan. People are often orphans when they are eighty-two, but it is true that when you have no mother or father you can feel very lonely at any age. ~ Eva Ibbotson

We mustn't only remember the good bits," she said. "We must remember the bad bits, too, so that we know it was real. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Miss Minton knew she was going to be dismissed, and she thought this was perfectly fair. A governess who let her charge sail up the rivers of the Amazon and live with Indian tribes could hardly expect to keep her job. ~ Eva Ibbotson

She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose] ... ~ Eva Ibbotson

If this is the 'Green Hell' of the Amazon, then hell is where I belong," said Maia. ~ Eva Ibbotson

After all, Betty was ill and she was her sister, and she wouldn't be able to shave her legs for weeks because of the plaster. ~ Eva Ibbotson

We've been together for thirty-five years," Alec had said. "We've no call to change now. ~ Eva Ibbotson

Do I know everything about him already? she thought, bewildered. And back came the answer: Everything. You are branded with this knowledge, you will have it for the rest of time. ~ Eva Ibbotson

But of course he knew, all of them knew. There is only one kind of a person a wizard can marry, and that is a witch. ~ Eva Ibbotson

I'm still not sure I didn't hallucinate the conversation while overdosing on his pheromones. ~ Sylvia Day

I grew up at 'All My Children;' I got married, had a daughter and made life-long friends there! ~ Eva LaRue

What a strange circumstance she found herself in: baking brownies for a handful of gods from the Underworld. ~ Eva Pohler

Men have no concept of how to design things for the home. Women should design the things they use. ~ Eva Zeisel

I read a lot of scripts. I believe you've got to read one that you know you're not going to do, because you've got to educate yourself on what's out there to make the best decision for you. ~ Eva Mendes

He locks eyes with me, the scowl gone now, and his eyes pierce my chest. "You're my love. ~ Eva Grayson

I learned early that you only have so much energy to give. You have to spend it correctly. ~ Eva Gabor

My worst habit in the kitchen is not allowing anybody to help me. I like to cook by myself. ~ Eva Longoria

I do everything I watch, whether it's like a big comic book film that I've done or something very serious and raw.I do have that initial feeling like I'm the worst, this is awful, my work is - I've let everybody down. I definitely have that. ~ Eva Mendes

I've learned that I can only live for myself. I cannot be focused on the world's idea of who they think I am or who I'm supposed to be. I can only be the best me. And if that means that even though I seem eligible and should be in a relationship, maybe I shouldn't be right now, because I am not emotionally available. It's knowing yourself and being more in tune with who you are vs. who the world wants you to be. ~ Eva Marcille

The worst is when men try too hard, because it's not very masculine. Your outfit has to look like 'Oh, I just grabbed that.' Not too calculated. Jeans, a t-shirt: the simpler the better. ~ Eva Green

We all show facets, to your mother, or to your boyfriend, or a friend. You're always a bit different. ~ Eva Green

There are some oligarchs that make me want to bite them just as one crunches into a carrot or a radish. ~ Eva Perón

I've been loved in life, but all that matters now is that I'm loved by you. -Eva ~ Abbi Glines

I won a scholarship to come to LA and compete in a modeling and talent completion and was amazed when I won it. I had never acted before in my life and won the acting category. I began to wonder what this is about and then decided to see what happened. ~ Eva Longoria

Love is a game played by two where both win - ~ Eva Gabor

You never date someone's ex-boyfriend. Period. That's not even the unspoken rule - that's the spoken rule. ~ Eva Longoria

And why is he here?" "Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my hands. It is the Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful debutante of last season. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Don't hang up. For God's sake, Eva, we're married . We're in love. There's no shame in that. So what if it's crazy? It's us . It's who we are. You need to come to grips with that. ~ Sylvia Day

What I want is for both of us to feel safe. What you and I have together shouldn't be draining us like this. It should be the one rock-solid thing we both count on. ~ Sylvia Day

I was raised in a beautiful Black two-parent family that has given me amazing morals to go out to make a better life for myself and others. That is who I truly am. And this show allows me to display the true essence of who I am and why I'm in this business. ~ Eva Marcille

I always knew pesticides affected farmworkers. That's why I always tell people, "eat organic." Not just because it's better for you but because you know the people who picked your food weren't in a toxic environment. ~ Eva Longoria

I don't like flirting, and when I love someone, I always give everything, maybe too much. And then you have to work at it all the time. I mean, the first months are always great, but afterwards it becomes hard work. It's not as passionate and crazy. ~ Eva Green

I do think once I get into expectations, I've just trained myself. I've just trained myself to just move on to the next. ~ Eva Mendes

I was a tomboy and any time anyone says something about me being hot, it makes me giggle. ~ Eva Longoria

When I come, I come for you.
Because of you and your mouth, hands, and insatiable little cunt. And it'll be that way for you in
reverse. My tongue, my fingers, my cum inside you. Just you and me, Eva. Intimate and raw.
Gideon ~ Sylvia Day

They'd been lovers for nearly a year. More and more, she waited, and knew less and less, never sure when she'd see him next, or how they'd spend the time together. Others presumed she was one of his secretaries and Eva knew that even for those women, the rhythms of his schedule - and his moods - were unpredictable. ~ Phyllis Edgerly Ring

You definitely have the voice for phone sex, but I've got to go. I have a date with my vibrator."
"Oh, Eva." Cross spoke my name in a decadent purr. "You're determined to drive me to my knees, aren't you? What will it take to talk you into a threesome with B.O.B. ~ Sylvia Day

Failure is Impossible."--Susan B. Anthony in The Renegade Queen ~ Eva Flynn

Competing against each other leaves little space for reciprocity and the growth of social capital. Running against another in a race may benefit our speed, but jointly organising the sports day produces cooperation and trust. There are many situations where cooperation and reciprocity are more effective than competition. Civic virtues come from building on what we have in common rather than by using our differences to create in-groups, outgroups and fear driven competition ~ Eva Cox

My mother did movies from the New Wave, but I was quite shocked I didn't know much about that period. Bernado showed us film of the demonstrations of the time. ~ Eva Green

My first husband, yes, I eloped with him from Hungary against my mother's wishes. ~ Eva Gabor

I worship the ground Eva walks on. I love her smile. I love the way she gets in a snit and her lips get all pinched up. I love the way she thinks she has to cook for me. I love the fact that she lets me butter her biscuit. I love the way she curls into me at night and lets me hold her. I also love how perfect it is when I'm making love to her. How I feel complete. ~ Abbi Glines

For me, as far as skin, I'm a big advocate of facials. And I moisturize. And I read my magazines. I listen to good advice from people who really know, and I try to watch what I eat. ~ Eva Longoria

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself.

In myths, nothing good comes from gloating. You have to let the gods maintain the image of their singular power.

I did not yet know that nightmares know no geography, that guilt and anxiety wander borderless.

It is a reflex to expect the bad with the good.

I don't know what fears kept hidden only grow more fierce. I don't know that my habits of pretending are only making us worse.

Maybe moving forward also meant circling back.

There are always two worlds. The one that I choose and the one that I deny, which inserts itself without my permission.

To change our behavior, we must change our feelings and to change our feelings, we must change our thoughts.

Freedom is bout choice - about choosing compassion, humor, optimism, intuition, curiosity and self-expression.

To be free is to live in the present.

When you have something to prove, you are not free.

When we grieve, it's not just over what happened - we grieve for what didn't happen.

You can't heal what you can't feel.

It's easier to hold someone or something else responsible for your pain than to take responsibility for ending your own victimhood.

Our painful experiences aren't a liability, they are a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, a ~ Edith Eva Eger

Eva and I walked downstairs, and I was definitely not prepared for what I saw. Jason was on top of the kitchen table in nothing but his boxers, swinging his shirt around his head. He was singing something, but I couldn't make out the words. I laughed, my hand shooting to my mouth as I watched Tyler try to coax him down while Eva picked up the clothes that were strewn all over the floor.
"Evaaaa, why don't you come up here and strip with me, just like you did the other night! Come on, baby!" he said, swinging his hips as if he were dancing to music that we could all hear.
Eva slapped her palm to her forehead, and Charlotte laughed hard.
When Jason touched the waistband of his boxers, I closed my eyes as I and everyone around me screamed, "No! ~ Alexandria Rhodes

So, I'm the Eighth Wonder of the World. It's flattering and very, very funny. ~ Eva Longoria

Eva, I recognize your confusion. It is not always easy to understand another's spirit, especially if you do not know where to look -Rovender ~ Tony DiTerlizzi

I know I'm a fuckin' bastard with a bad temper and I don't fuckin' deserve you but, shit Eva, if you woulda stayed put I woulda done better by you than you've had. You feel me?"
I stared at him. And fell in love with him all over again. ~ Madeline Sheehan

It's fun to be a woman. It's fun to flirt and wear makeup and have boobs ~ Eva Mendes