Jodi Lynn Anderson Quotes

She let the jealousy slip out of her fingertips. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

We are just stardust after all. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Do you think magic exists if it can be explained? ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?"
She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"
Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed."
"Being comfortable is not a bad thing."
Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist."
She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

The moment slipped away, but because it wasn't perfect, it was the most perfect one she could remember having ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Forget him. Forget him. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

But I don't want to lose my guts answered Pumpkin ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

But the outsider in May, the one from Briery Swamp who had never fit quite right, kept her tucked safely in her nook. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you've ever heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn't win. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I just wanted to see if ... we were okay," she said, feeling relief. "Just to make sure we can be friends. I don't want it to be weird, you know?" Friends? Different parts of Birdie died as she said it. It was like stars exploding and burning one by one. She wondered if this was part of getting older. Parts of your heart exploded and died. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

life's better with girls. boys need girls. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It was almost as if he was giving her his silence, so that all of her anger had a place to go. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It was funny how you could go somewhere and your whole life could stretch out and then you could come home and have it all shrink back to the way it was before. It was funny that it didn't stay stretched. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

He even listened to more than her sounds, because Tiger Lily was a girl of few words. He listened with his eyes, watched her facial expressions, judged body language, and therefore read Tiger Lily better than anyone else. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You're the main character of your life," Jacie said. "You're too important to die. That's how everybody feels. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me.

I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic.

The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it.

It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't.

I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It took several minutes, but he was meticulous about each letter. IN MEMRY OF THE STRANJER, it said. HE LIVD AND DID. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

And as fall turned to winter, the Darlington peach trees started dropping their leaves again, gently, like they were letting them go. It wasnt the same as giving them up. It wasnt the same as losing them. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Manhattan can be beautiful, Ellis, if you are willing to see it and not compare it to what you loved before ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

A faerie heart is different from a human heart. Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. Faerie hearts are evolutionarily less sophisticated. They are small and hard, like tiny grains of sand. Our hearts are too small to love more than one person in a lifetime. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we're only what we've done and what we are going to do. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It is just that she was fifteen once for the first time, and Peter walked across her heart and left his footprints there. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are in my bones. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I guess people are right when they say that time helps grief. I don't agree that it heals, but maybe it wraps our losses up deeper and deeper inside so we can get on with being alive. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

And age was just a trait, like the color of your hair, or the amount of freckles on your skin. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She hated his need to always win and he hated her coldness during their arguments. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter - strong, brave; to be big and to keep up - she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail. For Peter, who feared losing so much, this was a great comfort indeed. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

The way I see it, ignoring things is important. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Human hearts are elastic. They have room for all sorts of passions, and they can break and heal and love again and again. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Look," Peter said.
To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run.
"That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.
Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She felt as bevy as a sack of beans. But then, a sack of beans never got embarrassed or did stupid balloon in front of other sacks of beans or forgot to lock the bathroom door. Come to think of it, life was easy for all the beans of the world. Being a sack of them wouldn't be so bad. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I've made a discovery, and it's that grief isn't like sadness at all. Sadness is only something that's part of you. Grief becomes you, it wraps you up and changes you and makes everything--every little thing--different than it was before. I remember the me before we got the telegram saying he was gone, but it's like I'm remembering someone else. It feels like an earthquake has gone through me... ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Peter sank. "I'd give anything to see time. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I bit Tiger Lily, as hard as I could. I don't know how I thought it would help. Fairie bites are worse than wasp stings - they pierce and burn and ache all at the same time. As best, I knew, I'd be swatted away, and at worst she might crush me by accident in her reaction to the pain. But what happened was worse. She didn't seem to notice it at all. It was like Tiger Lily herself wasn't even really there. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

When they made up, it was as if nothing had happened at all. In fact, it was like they were stuck even closer together, like they had gotten even more tangled in each other. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Leeda knew friends never turned out to be what you expected. They came and went in waves, pulling away and coming back, leaving you feeling safe one minute and lost the next. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It turned out that my curiosity did not outweigh my courage after all. Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they're not what you hoped for. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It's strange, isn't it, how we can push people away because we want to be near them? Isn't that the silliest thing? ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Adri held her arms around herself, shivering.
"Do you think I can change?" she finally asked.
Lily looked at her, curious and thoughtful. "Well," she replied, "are you dead? ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I began to see that Wendy had something Tiger Lily hadn't even known she was supposed to have. Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter-strong, brave; to be big and to keep up-she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I recognized Tiger Lily instantly; I had seen her before. She stood out like a combination of a roving panther and a girl. She stalked instead of walked. Her body still held the invincibility of a child, when at her age it should have been giving way to fragile, flexible curves. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

We are here to take chances, and fail, and keep trying. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Pine Sap said once that he would rather die than see Tiger Lily tamed. I guess Tiger Lily felt the same way with Peter, because she stayed behind. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

What you did was very brave," Aunt Sticky Feet said, her words clipped but not unkind, "but men don't want women who are brave. They want women who make them feel like men."
"I don't care about that," Tiger Lily said quietly. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily, you're a fool. he said, and kissed her forehead. And despite his size, and the fact that a boy like him was not built to shoulder much of anything, he shouldered her weight, and carried her home. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Somehow as children he and Tiger Lily had been shuttled together - both misfits or, as I liked to think of them, strange exotic birds, one too fierce to be hemmed in as a girl, and the other too hesitant to be respected as a boy. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

For the next couple of weeks she held Peter like a secret in her heart, lying right under her necklace. I could see him written on her face, and Tik Tok, too, seemed to catch shadows of him, because he'd stop to stare at her, puzzled, as if he'd just seen the boy flit across her eyes-seen the ghost of the kiss lingering for a second on the skin of her neck before disappearing. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

If you have reasons for not coming back, I don't want to know them. I just want you to come back anyway. Ignorance, see? ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She tried to decide whether the silence was an empty one or a waiting one. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

This is no place for anyone with a heart. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think we could be friends," he said, falling into step with her. "It's perfect because I wouldn't fall in love with you, like I do with the mermaids. Girls always seem so exotic. But it would be okay with you, because you're more like ... you know. Not like a girl." He shrugged. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It seemed, when all was said and done, that all souls were a little wild, in some way or another. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Many people in the village wanted her to be more of a girl, and Peter had wanted her to be large and brave but a little less large and brave than him. But Pine Sap was sure enough to want her to be exactly who she was. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

West Virginia was mysterious and it liked to keep to itself. It hid in the folds of mountains, resting in the cool shade. It was sweet, beautiful, and bashful. Its woods held its secrets or at least it seemed that way to May. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

What mattered was stil there. That was what they all felt, and what surprised them all. What mattered couldnt be shaken. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Just for a moment, she could hear the muffled tick tick from inside its mouth before it disappeared underneath the murky surface, and curled away. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Earth," Alexa finally said. "It's not that great anyway." And they all smiled sadly. Because, of course, it was everything. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

One by one they dissapeared Pumpkin last of all.
The last May saw of himwas his sad face under his waving tuft of hair and then his long fingers,reaching out toward her for a hug that would never happen now as they turned around the bend. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Everyone will think I'm ugly."
Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

And though, truly, she sometimes felt like something inside her had disappeared, it seemed that must be a natural part of growing up. Standing out too much made one feel too alone to do it forever. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I can't even hear what I'm thinking most of the time. My brain's noisy. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Love can't be taken back once it's given ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I just love crazy people like this,' Murphy said. 'Jack Kerouac people. Mad to live, mad to die, that kind of thing. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I could never leave,' Pine Sap said.
'Why?' she asked.
Pine Sap shrugged, and gestured in the direction of the village. 'Because I think people must be the same everywhere. Only these people are my bones. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Maggie shook her head. I'm not calm, I'm just ... hesitant. It's like, I always think pretty soon my life will be this great story, as soon as it starts. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think that's what you say when you can't have something you want, isn't it? You say you don't want it in the first place. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

But you'll be back. I know you will. You won't be able to let us go now. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

But you are the only person I can show myself to. You always made my rough edges feel real. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I'm not myself," she offered, guiltily. She softened around Tik Tok, and when she did she was, for those rare moments, girlish.
He smiled. "You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

People say I'm not much of a girl either, Tiger Lily said.
She thought of Tik Tok, who was fond of saying that people were all bits of each thing, boy and girl. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I'm not a stranger to your love of lost causes, dear one. But you have to be careful who you meet," he said, stoking a pipe thoughtfully. "You can't unmeet them. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You look like a crazy person," Adri said.
"You look boring and average," Lily replied. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

With her mother, Leeda acted a lot. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She actually liked the idea that she might be made out of stars. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Still, the longer I was around her, the more I could see the colors of her mind and the recesses of her heart. There was a beast in there. But there was also a girl who was afraid of being a beast, and who wondered if other people had beasts in their hearts too. There was strength, and there was also just the determination to look strong. She guarded herself like a secret. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I know I'll miss it forever, but I also know that I can't give into that. As much as I've always loved Canaan and loved you, I want my life to go forward even if it hurts. And I've decided I have to reach for what I want even if my hands are trembling from fear. I'm sorry, Ellis, but I'm not coming home. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You never could tell when someone would stop growing old in Neverland. For Tik Tok, it had been after wrinkles had walked long deep tracks across his face, but for many people, it was much younger. Some people said it occurred when the most important thing that would ever happen to you triggered something inside that stopped you from moving forward. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You are the only person I've ever met who goes the other direction from the things she wants ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She said she thought there were different ways of loving someone, and there were some she used to think were the most important, and now she had changed her mind. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".
Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It didn't fit her ideas of who was bad, and who was good, and what was a happy ending, and what wasn't. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It never occurred to me before, but there could have easily been a world with no buses, no horns honking, no red lights, no shopping carts, no gum stick to the bottom of benches downtown. For that matter I guess there also could have been no sun, no trees, and no ocean. None of those things had to exist, I guess. It makes me feel lucky that they do. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

P.S. Please give my love to Tink, she always was such a funny little bug ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

He tousled Baby's hair, then looked up at Tiger Lily. "The woods have rules." He put Baby down gingerly in his trough with his bottle. "But the rules are ugly."
"It's nature," she said, thoughtfully.
"I have a lot of disagreements with nature," he said, looking confused, and his downy brow wrinkled over his eyes. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Gerdi didn't really understand.Cammy liked being quiet.She liked bingo.She wouldn't mind living in a cozy little hole,like a rabbit. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I think people everywhere are the same. Only these people are my bones. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Over the ten years since she'd been born, the trees of Briary Swamp, West Virginia, had peered through May's window night after night. They had watched over her thoughtful brown eyes, the imaginative crook of her head, the strong character of her knobby knees. The trees had laughed at the jokes May told her cat. Their leaves had whispered over her wild inventions, her colorful stories, her drawings. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

I don't know when Tiger Lily stopped growing older; I can't pinpoint that moment. But I do know I never saw her visibly age beyond the days when she was with Peter. I like to think her growing stopped the day they were on the plateau, watching the horses. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

There was a beast in there. But there was also a girl who was afraid of being a beast, and who wondered if other people had beasts in their hearts too. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You think you know that someone sees you one way, and barely at all, and then you realize that they see you in another. That was the night I realized (She) had seen- really seen- me all along. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they'd thought it was or if in England it was different. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Because watching him love Tiger Lily was better than not watching him at all. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars...and us. That's all anything amounts to. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

She thought of all the things she'd forgotten to be scared of. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

You looked strange climbing in the tree like that."
Tiger Lily pulled her braids between her fingers, her sudden self-consciousness feeling foreign and strange to her.
"I didn't do it to look nice," she said.
"But you do care."
Tiger Lily studied the tree and decided if she did care, she would now choose not to. "I don't," she said.
"All girls do," he added, pushing the point.
"You must not know many girls."
"I know a million," Peter said, dark and serious. There was a long awkward silence, but if Peter regretted his words, I couldn't tell. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson