Kiernan Quotes

And what is life but a little row in a small boat, every moment leaving what we know, every stroke unable to see where we are headed? ~ Stephen P. Kiernan

I don't like remembering the way that hurt her. Hurts her. I'm sure it still does; I'm just not around to see, and I don't like dwelling on that, either. That's only normal. Missing people you still love, and not wanting to see them in pain and angry and humiliated. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

You think one's any different from the next? I mean, when it comes right down to brass tacks, people killing each other since they figured out how, that's all. Give them pretty names and numbers, but it's all the same to the worms. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Kiernan, the less you know, the better. You're always telling me to just trust you and do what you're asking, and I do - "
He snorts. "When it suits you."
"Okay, but I do when it seems important. And this is really, really important. ~ Rysa Walker

Writing makes it even harder than concrete. Writing makes it hard as diamond. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Write what is important to you, regardless of fashion or marketability or anything like that – all those things are so far out of your control that you may as well not think about them. Of course, this may mean you'll never be published but that's a risk we all take every single time we set hands to keyboard or pen to paper. For me, if I can sit back at the end of a project and say, 'yes, I stayed honest, I said what I wanted to say, and I made it sing to the best of my ability', then I'm happy enough. Of course, if anyone wants to buy the damned thing off me when I'm done, that's jam I won't refuse. ~ Celine Kiernan

Ananna of Tanarau is a delightfully irascible heroine, inhabiting a fascinating and fresh new world that I would love to spend more time in. Pirate ships? Camels? Shadow dwelling assassins? Yes please! Can I have some more? ~ Celine Kiernan

It's the last residue of our closeness with God, I reckon, the ability to see the wonder of things. ~ Celine Kiernan

So what'd we miss?" Jade pulled a chair from the next table and wedged it between Kale and Dax.
"We were just about to vote you off the island," I said, stirring my coffee.
"You've got my vote," Kiernan said enthusiastically, glaring at Jade. ~ Jus Accardo

The Kiernan kid was there when it happened, near the back of the barn. He'd been hanging out earlier with a younger version of Simon and this electrical engineer we recruited. Kiernan helped them set up the lighting so that I'd look all ethereal and otherworldly.
I saw Kiernan's face after those people slit their throats to show their devotion to Cyrus. The boy's mouth hung open and he just stared at the bodies, as huge tears rolled down his cheeks. Seeing him there, seeing someone else looking the way I felt - I think that's the only reason I was able to hold it together until I got out of there. ~ Rysa Walker

Each kid got a small allowance for helping with the harvests, and Kiernan would always head straight to the tobacco shop. Not for cigarettes. At first, he even threw the cigarettes away, but later he'd save them and sell them to the older kids to get enough money for another pack.
Kiernan didn't want the smokes. He wanted the baseball cards.
When we got back to the Farm, Kiernan would sketch out a baseball diamond in the dirt and we'd stage games with the players from the cards he collected. ~ Rysa Walker

Case in point: On one of their first dates, he brought her a box of Ivory Flakes soap. Who needs flowers? Roses fade, but flaky soap available from the PX lasted months. Having Ivory Flakes was a rarity in itself, and also saved her valuable time - one less line to stand in, only to find that the grocer was out. Again. That was romance, as far as Colleen was concerned. Maybe this guy was a keeper after all. ~ Denise Kiernan

Eva was only a slut. She never had the requisite motivation to be anything so useful or lucrative as a whore. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I wish I could play fiddle by firelight.
That last one had been the wish of a guy named Nero. Just went to show that you had to be careful what you wished for. ~ Kiernan Kelly

I think I might have something for you today, he says, reaches beneath the counter, and his hand comes back with a book, clothbound cover the color of antique ivory, title and author stamped in faded gold and art deco letters. Best Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood, and she lifts it carefully off the countertop, picks it up the way someone else might lift a diamond necklace or a sick kitten, and opens the book to the frontispiece and title page, black-and-white photo of the author in a dapper suit, sadkind eyes and his bow tie just a little crooked. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Too often, it occurs to him that he's lived just long enough to have completely outlived the world that made sense to him, the world where he fit. He ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Brant."
Brant looked up and found himself facing Kiernan Kane. He frowned. "I thought I was asleep."
"You are."
"Then this is a dream?"
"It is a dream, yet it is not a dream."
Brant ground his teeth. "You annoy me even in my sleep, Minstrel. ~ Jenelle Leanne Schmidt

A female character can: Like babies, Be devoted to her lover, Cry, Be gentle, Be scared, Be uncertain, Take advice, and still be a YA heroine ~ Celine Kiernan

I am always texting! ~ Kiernan Shipka

Where's Kiernan?" I asked.
"He's with Brother Cyrus. Your turn."
The blood drained from my face and I stepped back, toward the wall. One of the older women, Glory, had died from a heart attack the year before. At the burial, all of the adults patted each other on the back and said she was with Brother Cyrus now.
The key suddenly felt like a lit coal in my hand, and I dropped it to the floor.
Patrick must have realized what I was thinking from my expression. "No, stupid," he said, as he bent down to pick up the key. "He's not dead. He's with Cyrus. In the future. He's fine. You'll be fine. ~ Rysa Walker

No one we knew ever believed that there was anything between us but the sex and some virulent allure, my dirty dishwater circling the drain of you. Not a pretty comparison but maybe it's the best we'll ever deserve, either of us. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I don't know if I've ever screamed or cried for a band. ~ Kiernan Shipka

It is not the task of a writer to 'tell all,' or even to decide what to leave in, but to decide what to leave out. Whatever remains, that meager sum of this profane division, that's the bastard chimera we call a 'story.' I am not building, but cutting away. And all stories, whether advertised as truth or admitted falsehoods, are fictions, cleft from the objective facts by the aforementioned action of cutting away. A pound of flesh. A pile of sawdust. Discarded chips of Carrara marble. And what's left over.
Houses Under The Sea ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Making a story from the messy thoughts and half-thoughts in her head, building a world and lives and taking them apart again, fitting the pieces together another way until it feels right, as right as she can make it feel. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Normal is a bitter pill that we rail against. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Whatever they'd done to him, it had shaken something lose. "No," he repeated, calmer. "No. I'll save you for last. I owe you for what you did to me. I'll make you suffer like I did, then I'll bring you in."
And just like that, the fragile patchwork of hope shattered, stealing my breath and bleeding me dry. My hand closed around something - I had no idea what, but it was heavy. That was all I cared about. "Good," I said, resigned. I loved Kale and I'd do anything to get him back, but I wasn't stupid. "Then that gives me time."
"For what?"
I whipped the object - it turned out to be a wrench - around and slammed it into the side of Kale's head as Alex yanked up the garage door. "To knock some frigging sense into you."
I raced toward Alex as Kale went down and Kiernan burst through the door. ~ Jus Accardo

I heard obscenities everywhere, as though the world were populated entirely by longshoremen... Had no one told them that coarseness lacks dignity? ~ Stephen P. Kiernan

Kiernan and baseball - it's like waving a carrot in front of a mule. Put tickets to a ballgame in front of Kiernan's face and he'll follow you pretty much wherever you want to go. After that first game we attended in 1905, it didn't take much for me to convince him to see another game in 1912, and then one in 1924, and so on. ~ Rysa Walker

You know, it's a sad and unfortunate state of affairs that you have to live in a world where eight-year-olds refuse to believe in anything that they cannot touch or measure, and anyone who happens to see a thing that is invisible to most people is immediately branded a lunatic. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

A book may only be judged for what it is, not what you'd like it to be. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO! ~ Celine Kiernan

Well I was a Gerber baby, so probably that was my first money. But in cash, I used to do lemonade stands a lot. ~ Kiernan Shipka

On the Hunger Games Fan Race fail and the portrayal of POC in fantasy literature:
It is as if the POC in the text are walking around with a great big red sign over them for some editors and it reads I AM NOT A REAL CHARACTER. I AM A PROBLEM YOU MUST DEAL WITH. The white characters are permitted to saunter about with their physical descriptions hanging out all over the place, but best not make mention of dark skin or woolly/curly hair or dark eyes (Unless, of course, that character is white. None of my white-skinned dark-eyed characters had any problem being described as such. And I'm pretty sure that Sól's curly hair never gave anyone a single pause for thought.) As I said, I understand the desire not to define a POC simply by their physical attributes, and I understand cutting physical descriptions if no other character is described physically – but pussyfooting about in this manner with POC is doing nothing but white wash the characters themselves. It's already much too hard to get readers to latch onto the fact that some characters may not be caucasian, why must we dance about their physical description as if it were some kind of shameful dirty little secret. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the way homosexuality used to only ever be hinted at in texts. It was up to the reader to 'read between the lines' or 'its there if you look for it' and all that total bullshit which used to be the norm. ~ Celine Kiernan

I shouldn't be this tired when I try to find my way back to the tree. I'll rest for a while, and I'll drift back down to the orchard, and the stone wall. I'll lie in my bed and wait. Someone has turned the ponies out again. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I certainly know quite a few kid actors, but I'm not really friends with them. They're all very nice people, but I just don't run in the same circles. ~ Kiernan Shipka

And for the first time in her life the tears that had always seemed to flow so easily, had always been there, eager to soothe any loss or ache, had refused to come, and somehow, that had been the most frightening thing of all.
Used 'em all up on trifling shit, and now there's nothing left to cry. Like something her mother used to say or maybe a schoolteacher had said a long time ago. Stop bawling or someday you won't be able to cry, someone you love will die and you won't ever be able to stop hurting. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Things settled into a lazy pattern. School, chores, and long hours down by the river. Kiernan talked about the books he read sometimes, even loaned me a few. But I liked it better when he read to me or just told me the stories. The words were more real that way, more exciting. Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Ragged Dick, and all the others seemed flat and dull on the page, but Kiernan was good at making them come alive. ~ Rysa Walker

You take my breath. Did you know that?"
Matt bit his lip and shook his head.
Kiernan leaned back enough to look into his eyes. "You're a beautiful man, Matthew Bennett," he said, voice soft but intense as he stroked him more firmly. "And someone should tell you that, every day for the rest of your life. ~ Diana Copland

Kiernan doesn't answer. He just turns toward the door and walks out, limping. He bangs both the cabin door and the porch door on his way out. Pretty sad for someone who seems to think he's being the adult here. ~ Rysa Walker

And one day, if I see your smile on her face, maybe that'll keep me from feeling I've left a piece of my heart behind. ~ Rysa Walker

I realize how arrogant it is to claim I can sort what is relevant from what is irrelevant. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

You see, I've read Mr. Grumbine's treatise on auras, and while it does depend on the shade, a green aura can be a mark of deception or dishonesty."
I shoot Kiernan a smug glance. While I'm certain this aura stuff is total bunk, he and Prudence both see the light as green. "Does this Mr. Grumbine say anything about blue auras?"
"Again, it depends on the shade. But it's usually associated with truth. ~ Rysa Walker

I'd feel a lot better about this if that spell had worked," Kiernan hissed.
"Don't tell me that I'm going to have to drag you along," I whispered back. "This is a real adventure, Kiernan. Just think, if we manage to get out of all this without being killed or imprisoned, you'll have such stories to tell the ladies at court."
"Are you sure that this isn't blasphemy? We're going to desecrate the grave of the Nameless God's chosen ones."
"We aren't going to desecrate it," I insisted. "We're just going to look around it. And besides, since when have you worried about blasphemy?"
He snorted, but softly. "Let's go, then. ~ Eilis O'Neal

Some things are worth the splurge. ~ Kiernan Shipka

Assassination is almost always unthinkable to moral, thinking men until after a holocaust has come and gone. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Kiernan leans forward. "I'm guessing that's because you can make it work, Mr. Houdini. Maybe that's how you manage . . ." He pauses when my kick lands on his shin, but finishes the sentence anyway. ". . . some of your more elaborate escapes. ~ Rysa Walker

I began keeping diaries after they locked Rosemary up at Butler and I went to live with Aunt Elaine in Cranston until I was eighteen, but even the diaries can't be trusted. For instance, there's a series of entries describing a trip to New Brunswick that I'm pretty sure I never took. It used to scare me, those recollections of things that never took place, but I've gotten used to it. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Reading helps you understand another person's truth, and gives you the tools to share your own truth with people you may never even meet ~ Celine Kiernan

I need a world filled with wonder, with awe, with awful things. I couldn't exist in a world devoid of marvels, even if the marvels are terrible marvels. Even if they frighten me to consider them. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

YA heroines can choose to have sex & they can choose not to without either decision becoming the focus of their story. ~ Celine Kiernan

The long nub end of afternoon spent at her keyboard, her hands moving so much slower than her racing mind, The frustrating lag between her thoughts and the hunt and peck; a hot flood of ideas where there had been months of trickling, uncertain sentences, and Sadie trying to keep up with herself, wishing she'd taken typing in high school, scared that this inspiration would grow restless, impatient with her, and slink back to whatever hole it crawled out of. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Kiernan gives him a suspicious look. "You performed at the Expo?"
"Yes," Bess answers. "Along with his brother, Dash. They headlined as The Brothers Houdini on the Midway Plaisance."
"Really?" Kiernan shakes his head. "I was there as well. For the entire run. I knew every headliner on the Midway."
Houdini eyes shift slightly. "Well, we weren't exactly headliners, but yes, we did perform at the Fair. ~ Rysa Walker

Back home, the dank and mildewstinking halls of Quinlan Castle, and she pauses on the concrete front steps to shake the rain off Jerome's happy yellow umbrella, flaps it open and closed, open and closed, making a furious noise like the death throes of a giant bat or a pterodactyl, spraying a thousand droplets across the steps and the sidewalk. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she - the author - should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

And all the shelves rising up around her like book-lined walls of a fortress, safe in here, always safe in here from the world, guarded by books and all the secrets inside them, all the things hardly anyone else will ever care to learn. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Dancy can hear rain beginning to fall on the tar-paper roof of the cabin. Fat summer raindrops, and it's the sweetest sound, almost, sweet as the end of a fever, as ripe as red apples. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

A dictator decrees," she later wrote, "a president asks Congress for permission to organize. ~ Denise Kiernan

Every month, the US is spending more on the Iraqi war than it took to reach Saturn and Titan. Mass murder is expensive, and good science is relatively cheap. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

It is always Dark. Light only hides the Darkness. - DANIEL KIAN MC KIERNAN ~ Al Sarrantonio

... but that was a long time ago, a long story everyone's tired of repeating, or a short story simply not worth repeating again. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

(on teaching writing)
So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest. ~ Celine Kiernan

I know the ugly faces the moon makes when it thinks no one is watching. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Originality is the most deadly mirage in all of art. You can chase it from now until doomsday, and you'll only find yourself lost and dying of thirst. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

We were watching telly the night Nan burnt the house down. ~ Celine Kiernan

No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Dead people, dead ideas and supposedly dead moments are never really dead and they shape every moment of our lives. We ignore them and this makes them powerful. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Think of it." Now he is speaking to you, no one but you. "It may not matter what we want for science, or what we think is ethical. All we must do is provide the right environment, and let the heart do what it desires. The heart wants to beat. ~ Stephen Kiernan

Well, I'm expecting great things from you, young man!"
"Th-thank you, Brother Cyrus." As soon as he released my shoulders, I hurried over to the glass wall where Kiernan was sitting, frowning out at the ocean like it had done something to piss him off. ~ Rysa Walker

Hello, Miss Mackay. It's been a while, hasn't it? But then, a man never knows quite when he'll run into you, eh, Kiernan? ~ Heather Graham

I loved this place when I was a kid. I still love it, but when I was a kid I'd take the bus down here and spend all day long reading in this room. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

It is possible for YA heroines to go an entire book without discussing their love lives. ~ Celine Kiernan

Kissing is much easier than smoking, ~ Kiernan Shipka

I pull my T-shirt over my face and am about to plunge in when it occurs to me that I'm approaching this, as Kiernan would say, far too linearly. ~ Rysa Walker

I do listen to some music, but I don't technically have one band I'm absolutely hooked on. ~ Kiernan Shipka

Yeah, that's what I saw. But I learned a long time ago that some stuff I see when I touch these things, some of it can be influence by other people who touched them before me, by what those people believed. If those beliefs are strong enough, Chance, it's like they can leave impressions behind, the same way that actual events can. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Interview on The Skiffy and Fanty Show 2010. In response to query that young adults may not be open to the nuances/realism in Moorehawke:

'(In fact)young adult readers seem to (be very inclined)to reading the (Moorehawke) books thematically. Some (not all) adult reviewers ... tend to be very plot oriented. Because the books are a slow release of information and very character driven ... (they) don't reward impatient reading ... but young adults seem to be very patient readers. They're very analytical as well. I get very analytical responses from my young adult readers. ~ Celine Kiernan

Chance smiled back at him, and Well, can you think of anything else I could do with my life that could ever possibly be half this splendid, half this important? I'm learning to read, Deke, and not just the handful of things men have been around long enough to write down. The history of the whole damned planet is written in rocks, just lying there waiting for us to learn how to read it. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I'm not sure why he's flustered until I realize there are now five of us and the table is set for four.
Pru waves her hand dismissively. "Don't bother. The dark-haired one is just my bodyguard. He can stand."
Kiernan seems entirely unfazed by the comment, but her tone pisses me off. ~ Rysa Walker

No strings attached," Constance said again. "Oh, there are always strings," I replied. "Whether we put them there or not. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

You're not so different from Kiernan anyway. You both have lived long enough to lose friends - too long, maybe. Perhaps that's why the Minstrel wears a mask and keeps people at arm's length: he too knows the pain of loving too much. ~ Jenelle Leanne Schmidt

There's nothing wrong with a lisp. ~ Kiernan Shipka

I really get a chance to be a normal kid. ~ Kiernan Shipka

A phenomenon that might seem only backwards or silly when expressed at a social level becomes madness at the individual level. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I design some of my own clothes now. ~ Kiernan Shipka

Whether or not you agree with the outcome, the tremendous amount that the Manhattan Project accomplished in such a short amount of time–just under three years–is astonishing. It makes you wonder what other kinds of things could be accomplished with that kind of determination, effort, and financial and political support. What if the kind of money, manpower, and resources that went into the Manhattan Project went into the fight against hunger? Cancer? Homelessness? ~ Denise Kiernan

I've been playing since I was 5, but I wouldn't say that I'm serious about the piano. ~ Kiernan Shipka

Ordinary people need to lead and not sit there and think that governments are going to spoon-feed them and look after them and look after the country, because they won't. ~ Ian Kiernan

I inspect everything more closely, and there is about every surface - the river, the forest, the bark of the trees, the underbrush between them, even my own skin - there is about it all the unmistakable texture of linen stretched and framed. And this is when I feel the camel's hair brush and the oil paint dabbing tenderly, meticulously, at the space below my navel. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

You love someone. You don't leave her to drown. And you don't tell her she's crazier than she already knows that she is! ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

My life had become one long cliffhanger ~ Celine Kiernan

The first scene I ever appeared in, it was the first scene I ever shot [during my] first day on set. I walk up to my mom with a plastic bag over my head and she says that her clothes better not be on the floor, not that a plastic bag is not a safety hazard or anything. I think it's a really cute scene and also just a very vivid memory. ~ Kiernan Shipka

And it means snapshots, because that's what all stories I write come down to; each is a snapshot of who I was during however many days and weeks it was written. A fictional reflection of my mind fossilized, set in paper and ink, instead of stone. Memorialized, for better or worse. This is who I was, and this, and this, and this, and that, and most times I look back and wince. I'm rarely kind to who I was. But other times, looking back is bittersweet. Sometimes, I'm even grateful to the me of then who left a snapshot for the me of now. Maybe I should let go and join those who pretend the past is past, but it's a falsehood I've never learned to spin. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I am a huge fashion fan. It's a really cool way to express yourself. ~ Kiernan Shipka

It turned out that between 1945 and 1947, 18 people were injected with plutonium, specifically: 11 at Rochester, New York, 3 at the University of Chicago, 3 at UC San Francisco, and 1, Ebb Cade, at Oak Ridge. Several thousand human radiation experiments were conducted between 1944 and 1974. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the Advisory Committee of Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) to investigate these and other experiments funded by the United States government. Their final report was published in 1996. ~ Denise Kiernan

All through those years of war, the bread tasted of humiliation. ~ Stephen P. Kiernan

No sound here but the river lapping hungry at the edge of the forest, the sigh of the wind in the leaves and the rasping drone of insects. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

Chance takes a deep breath, fills her lungs with all the brightness getting in through the window, filling herself with that sane and ordinary air, with what she knows is real, reality to make her brave. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

I felt his marital commitment more in that moment than I ever had before. It wasn't noisy or passionate. It was quiet, and patient, and slowly piecing itself back together. ~ Stephen P. Kiernan

I nearly miss it, given Tate's need for speed, but as we zip by the guy in the alley, I catch a brief glimpse of his face.
It's Kiernan. How did he get out before we did when he was behind us?
A few seconds after we pass, Kiernan darts out of the alley, but he can't keep up. Usain Bolt couldn't keep up with Tate. ~ Rysa Walker

In the end, it's only a story of having had her words and secrets, her confidences, turned against her by someone she once believed entirely beyond any acts of betrayal. A story of pettiness and cruelty and of the lies friends will tell when a friendship has ceased to be profitable or convenient. It is a very simple and inexpressibly complex story of cowardice ... ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan