Liesl Quotes

Home is a place to get out of the rain
It cradles the hurt and mends the pain
And no one cares about your name
Or the height of your head
Or the size of your brain ~ Liesl Shurtliff

All things on earth and beneath it passed away, but music was immortal. Even if I was dead to the world above, a part of me would live each time my music was heard" -Liesl ~ S. Jae-Jones

And that's its own kind of magic - to feel that people who are gone are still here. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

But then Oma tells me of bread, of the six hundred kinds made throughout her homeland, white and gray and black in color. Loaves heavy with pumpkin seeds. Pumpernickel. Rye. All with long, dense names like 'Sonnenblumenkernbrot' and 'Roggenmischbrot'. Each word is music to her. She has never eaten a tinned bread bagged in plastic with a little twist tie, a pride she wears all over. 'It matters,' she tells me. 'Wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing.'
Whose bread I eat, his song I sing. ~ Christa Parrish

A stiltskin is magic at its greatest. Pure magic, un-meddled-with and more powerful than any enchantment or spell. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Rhymes make me feel better when I'm down ... When you say the words and the sounds match, it feels like everything in the world is in its place and whatever you say is powerful and true. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Love is the bridge that spans the world above and below, and keeps the wheel of life turning. ~ S. Jae-Jones

Po flickered. "Thank you?" it repeated. "What is that?"
Liesl thought. "It means, You were wonderful," she said. "It means, I couldn't have done it without you. ~ Lauren Oliver

Who was the monster, here? ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Names are powerful and so is destiny, but a person's will is more powerful than both put together. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

I am,' he whispers, 'the monster I warned you against.'
'You are,' I say hoarsely, 'the monster I claim. ~ S. Jae-Jones

It's difficult to tell how much time is really passing when you're hungry and bored. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

I believe another one of the Song girls has a birthday coming up." He sings, "You are sixteen, going on seventeen…" I feel a strong surge of love for him, my dad who I am so lucky to have.
"What song are you singing?" Kitty interrupts.
I take Kitty's hands and spin her around the kitchen with me. "I am sixteen, going on seventeen; I know that I'm naïve. Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet; willingly I believe."
Daddy throws his dish towel over his shoulder and marches in place. In a deep voice he baritones, "You need someone older and wiser telling you what to do…"
"This song is sexist," Kitty says as I dip her.
"Indeed it is," Daddy agrees, swatting her with the towel. "And the boy in question was not, in fact, older and wiser. He was a Nazi in training."
Kitty skitters away from both of us. "What are you guys even talking about?"
"It's from The Sound of Music," I say.
"You mean that movie about the nun? Never seen it."
"How have you seen The Sopranos but not The Sound of Music?"
Alarmed, Daddy says, "Kitty's been watching The Sopranos?"
"Just the commercials," Kitty quickly says.
I go on singing to myself, spinning in a circle like Liesl at the gazebo. "I am sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose…Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet, and willingly I believe…"
"Why would you just willingly believe some random fellows you don't even know?"
"It's the song, Kitty, not me! God!" I stop spinning. "Lies ~ Jenny Han

It's hard not to feel guilty when starving people bring you food. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

All magic has consequences, Rump. Even small magic can have big consequences. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Sometimes we have to fall down before we can stand up. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Funny, that we always told stories with wolves and beasts and demons as villains, but in real life it seemed the humans were always the worst enemies. You could be your own villain. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

I didn't think meanness was ever in anyone's destiny. Meanness was a choice. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

You are the one who wanted a happy ending, my dear. So you tell me, how does the story end?"
Tears slipped from my face, and he wiped them away with his thumbs.
"The foolish young man lets the beautiful maiden go."
"Yes." His voice was clotted thick with unshed emotion. "He lets her go. ~ S. Jae-Jones

Liesl & Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic - not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying,
And, of course, it is a way of finding a happy ending - even, or especially, when the happy ending is denied me in real life. Let it be an escape for its readers. For me, it is a way of not letting go. ~ Lauren Oliver

Your music," he said at last. "Your music was the only thing that kept me sane, that kept me human instead of a monster. ~ S. Jae-Jones

Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. "When you go swimming and you put your head under the water," Po said, "and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don't miss the air do you? You don't miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It's just different."
"True." Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, "But I bet you'd miss it if you were drowning. I bet you'd really miss the air then. ~ Lauren Oliver

What would be enough? He had an answer he wanted to hear, but I withheld it. Games and more games. We would always be dancing with each other, the Goblin King and I. ~ S. Jae-Jones

Liesl knew then that Po had been lying. The ghost did miss the living side. She understood then, too, that everyone drowns differently; and that for everyone, even ghosts, there is a different kind of air. ~ Lauren Oliver

The last night of the year," Constanze said. "Now the days of winter begin and the Goblin King rides abroad, searching for his bride. ~ S. Jae-Jones

He looked at me as no one had before, as though I were more the sum of my eyes, my nose, my lips, my hair, and my wretched plainness. He looked as though he saw me entire, as though he knew me" -Liesl ~ S. Jae-Jones

If it were only feathers that could transform a sparrow into a peacock" -Liesl ~ S. Jae-Jones

I surveyed my kingdom. Chaos. Cruelty. Abandon. I had always been holding back. Always been restrained. I wanted to be bigger, brighter, better; I wanted to be capricious, malicious, sly. Until now, I had not known the intoxicating sweetness of attention. In the world above, it had always been Käthe or Josef who captivated people's eyes and
hearts - Käthe with her beauty, Josef with his talent. I was forgotten, overlooked, ignored - the plain, drab, practical,talentless sister. But here in the Underground, I was the sun around which their world spun, the axis around which their maelstrom twirled. Liesl the girl had been dull, drab, and obedient; Elisabeth the woman was a queen. ~ S. Jae-Jones

It's all the things in the middle that make a person special. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

She liked the word ineffable because it meant a feeling so big or vast that it could not be expressed in words.
And yet, because it could not be expressed in words, people had invented a word to express it, and that made Liesl feel hopeful, somehow. ~ Lauren Oliver

Simple needs make a simple life. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

A name is a powerful thing. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Martha spouted off a long message to the gnome, including all the details of my injuries, precisely where I was, and who Martha was and her son Helmut. When she asked the gnome to repeat the message, he got it all mixed up, and so she did it again and made it longer, but he still got it all mixed up, and so they went back and forth, and finally Martha lost patience and threw him out the window. The gnome scurried away chanting, Red for message! Red for message! ~ Liesl Shurtliff

Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic
not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end). ~ Lauren Oliver

Life would be awfully grim and glum if I couldn't laugh at myself. ~ Liesl Shurtliff

I hadn't expected the game to start off so poorly, so I hadn't yet gathered any ideas for penalties to dole out. So I asked another question. "Fine. What is your favorite color?"
"Green. What's yours?"
My glance fell on the salver beside me. "Red. Favorite smell?"
"Incense. Favorite animal?"
My eyes lingered on his. "Wolf. Favorite composer?"
"You. ~ S. Jae-Jones