Malorie Blackman Quotes

I lay on her bed with my arms wrapped around her, wondering how on earth we'd managed to end up like this. I'm not sure what'd been on my mind when I came to see her, but this wasn't it! Strange the way things turn out. When I'd come into her room I'd been burning up with desire to smash her and everything around her. And yet here she was, asleep and still holding on to my arms like I was a life-raft or something. There's not a single millimetre between her body and mine. I could move my hands and, and, anything I liked. Caress or strangle. Kill or cure. Her or me. Me or her. ~ Malorie Blackman

When a chance for real happiness comes by, grab it with both hands and devour it. If it lasts five minutes or five lifetimes, it's still worth it. ~ Malorie Blackman

But the Good Book said a lot of things. Like 'love thy neighbor' and ' do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. If nothing else, wasn't the message of the Good Book to live and let live? So how could the Crosses call themselves 'God's chosen' and still treat us the way they did? ~ Malorie Blackman

I wish ... I wish he wasn't quite so ashamed of me. And if he could stop feeling so ashamed of himself, then maybe we might stand a chance. ~ Malorie Blackman

What I wanted to do was use literature and different kinds of stories and poems as a springboard, tapping into the creativity of our teens - I wanted teenagers to come up with their own creative responses to literature - using books themselves as a starting point. ~ Malorie Blackman

I remember going into a bookshop, and the only book I saw with a black child on the cover was 'A Thief in the Village' by James Berry, and I thought, 'Is this still the state of publishing?' Then I thought, 'Either I can whine about it or try to do something about it.' ~ Malorie Blackman

I believe we need more culturally diverse books - about disabled characters, though not about their disability, about people with different sexual orientations, or a boy who is a cross-dresser. We need to reflect the diversity of our society. ~ Malorie Blackman

My rear end was blood-raw from my so called brilliant ideas rebounding on me. ~ Malorie Blackman

The best thing about being Children's Laureate has definitely been all the children and teens I've met. ~ Malorie Blackman

A film of my life would never happen! ~ Malorie Blackman

D'you ever wonder what it would be like if our positions were reversed?' I ask. At Jack's puzzled look I continue. 'If we whites were in charge instead of you Crosses?'
'Can't say it's ever crossed my mind,' Jack shrugs.
'I used to think about it a lot,' I sigh. 'Dreams of living in a world with no more discrimination, no more prejudice, a fair police force, an equal justice system, equality of education, equality of life, a level playing field ... ~ Malorie Blackman

That just the way it is. Some things will never change. That's just the way it is. But don't you believe them. ~ Malorie Blackman

I remember, when I was at school, we would have a 10-minute storytelling session where we'd all sit on the floor cross-legged, and the teacher would read. It became something we all really looked forward to. That was part of the reason I grew to love stories. ~ Malorie Blackman

Sephy told me once that I was the only one who could make her cry. I've never told this to her, or to anyone else for the matter, but it works the other way round as well.
- callum mcgregor/noughts&crosses ~ Malorie Blackman

You remind me of a boy I used to know
Same Smile, same easy, laid-back style
And man, could he kiss
Blew my mind the very first time
His lips touched mine.
You remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to like.
Same eyes, strong arms, same open mind
And man, could he dance
Arms around me, lost in a trance
I'd hear his heart
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me

You remind me of a boy I used to love
Same laughter and tears, shared through the years
And man, how he felt

Made my bones more than melt
He touched my soul.
You remind me

I'm scared of you
How did you find me?
Turn and walk away
'Cause you remind me ~ Malorie Blackman

Dear God, please let him have heard me. Please.
Please.
If you're up there.
Somewhere. ~ Malorie Blackman

For once I didn't look away immediately. I forced myself to meet her contemptuous gaze. I allowed myself be swept away by it, to drown in it - the way I'd done so many times before. The way I would willingly do again. Because at least she was here to hate me. At least I had that. I watched my daughter conjure up the filthiest look in her vast arsenal before she turned away with complete disdain. I didn't mind that so much. It meant I could watch her, drink her in without her protest.
Look at our daughter, Callum. Isn't she beautiful, so very beautiful? She laughs like me, but when she smiles ... Oh Callum, when she smiles, it's picnics in Celebration Park and sunsets on our beach and our very first kiss all over again. When Callie Rose smiles at me, she lights up my life.
When Callie Rose smiles at me. ~ Malorie Blackman

I try to widen the horizons of every child I meet, and part of that is promoting diverse forms, be it graphic novels, stories told in a narrative voice, or more translated books, as well as more diverse writers and more diverse characters. ~ Malorie Blackman

History should belong to all of us, and it needs to include people from different cultural backgrounds. Otherwise, it risks becoming irrelevant to children, who could then become disenchanted with education. ~ Malorie Blackman

No-one understood. No-one. Least of all - me. ~ Malorie Blackman

Book sales and teens reading is always a fantastic thing, but we should also be celebrating and consuming the huge wealth of U.K. and U.K.-based writing and illustrating talent. Authors such as Charlie Higson, Darren Shan, Holly Smale, Tanya Byrne, Catherine Johnson, Sophie Mckenzie, to name but a few. ~ Malorie Blackman

What I would like to do is make sure every primary school child has a library card, so where parents don't get their children library cards, we'll see if we can get schools to step in and make sure that every child has one. ~ Malorie Blackman

Thoughts can creep up on you, or they can hit harder than a wrecking ball. ~ Malorie Blackman

Lynny's solution was better. Just fade out, until you were ready to fade back in. ~ Malorie Blackman

We had a few non-fiction books at home, but my dad was of the opinion that fiction was a complete and utter waste of time because it wasn't real - so what was the point of reading it? ~ Malorie Blackman

If you're naive - which means immature, inexperienced, or a bit thick - you get eaten alive. ~ Malorie Blackman

Sometimes the things you're convinced you don't want turn out to be the thing you need the most in this world. ~ Malorie Blackman

What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well. ~ Malorie Blackman

I loved reading when I grew up but did feel totally invisible because I couldn't see myself and my life reflected in the books I was reading. ~ Malorie Blackman

Five years off my life ...
I wondered with a wry smile, would people be immortal if they didn't have kids? ~ Malorie Blackman

I started reading seriously at seven or eight, books about myths and legends, the Narnia series. By the time I was 11, I had read all the children's books in my local library, so I moved on to 'Jane Eyre.' What I loved about Jane Eyre was that she didn't rely on her looks but her character. She had a spirit nobody could break. ~ Malorie Blackman

I pulled him closer to me, wrapping my arms around him, kissing him just as desperately as he was kissing me. Like if we could just love long enough and hard enough and deep enough, then the world outside would never, could never hurt us. ~ Malorie Blackman

A good book is a good book. End of story. ~ Malorie Blackman

Jude's fourth law: Caring equals vulnerability. Never show either. ~ Malorie Blackman

Jude's rule number five: Never get to close to anyone or anything that you can't walk away at a moment's notice if you have to.
When you have to. ~ Malorie Blackman

I would like to use stories as a springboard for children to make their own creative responses. I would like to encourage them to express themselves using music, art, film or whatever, and upload it to a website having been inspired by particular stories. ~ Malorie Blackman

I subscribe to the online Urban Dictionary's definition of nerd: 'one whose IQ exceeds his weight'. I'm also keen on the same Urban Dictionary's definition of geek: 'the person you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult'. I happily proclaim myself a book nerd/reading geek and proud of it. ~ Malorie Blackman

She stays lost in the middle of her own world somewhere. We can't get in and she doesn't come out. Not often anyway, and certainly not for any length of time. But her mind takes her to somewhere kind, I think, to judge by the peaceful, serene look on her face most of the time. ~ Malorie Blackman

I didn't even enter a bookshop until I was 14 because I couldn't afford books until I got my first Saturday job, but by the time I was six or seven, I spent practically every Saturday down my local library reading as much as I could and getting out as many books as I could. ~ Malorie Blackman

I'm too breathless, too overwrought to say anything in reply. I cling onto him, my arms around him, loving him so much I think I'll die of it. Can he hear my scattered thoughts? Or just read what I'm feeling in my eyes? Just one look to drink me in. Just a touch to eat me up. Carry me away. Your hands are so hot against my skin, burning me wherever you touch. But don't stop touching me. Never stop loving me. Oh Callum, I love you so much. And what you're doing to me.. My blood is on fire. Each kiss, each caress robs me of another piece of my heart, another part of my soul. There's no you and me anymore. There's just us- as one. I return your kiss, our lips pressing together harder and harder, until I can't tell where I stop and you start. Lost in a dream and carried onwards and upwards, until we're both so high we're touching heaven. Knocking on heaven's door. ~ Malorie Blackman

One of us ...
One of them ...
One of us ...
One of them ...
A rhythm playing like train wheels on a circular track
never ending but going nowhere. ~ Malorie Blackman

He wrapped his arms around me. We were cuddled up like a couple of spoons in a cutlery drawer. ~ Malorie Blackman

The point is, you have family and friends who love you. You have a world out there just waiting for you to conquer it. You have a life that will be anything you make it. That's the point. ~ Malorie Blackman

Why was it that when noughts committed criminal acts, the fact that they were noughts was always pointed out? The banker was a Cross. The newsreader didn't even mention it. ~ Malorie Blackman

I mean you're cute, but not that cute. Would Rhea really risk life in a maximum security detention unit just so that she could press herself against your manly body? ~ Malorie Blackman

I work in my attic, and the view is next door's chimney stack. ~ Malorie Blackman

You're a Nought and I'm a Cross and there's nowhere for us to be, nowhere for us to go where we'd be left in peace ... That's why I started crying. That's why I couldn't stop. For all the things we might've had and all the things we're never going to have. ~ Malorie Blackman

What I want is to try and get across the idea that reading for pleasure is so beneficial. And turn children on who have maybe been switched off reading or never found a love of it in the first place. ~ Malorie Blackman

The single yellow diamond stud he wore in his left ear twinkled like a giggle in the morning sunlight. ~ Malorie Blackman

I suppose it doesn't occur to you that I can think the system just as unjust as you do. ~ Malorie Blackman

And round and round and round. Why couldn't I get past the letter? Like poison id had seeped into every image and every memory I kept of Callum, polluting them until I couldn't tell which was real and what was just wishful thinking any more. Until at last, I was forced to face the inescapable fact that, for whatever reason, Callum had written the letter. ~ Malorie Blackman

Temptation leans on the doorbell, but opportunity knocks only once. ~ Malorie Blackman

I remember being in a history lesson and saying to my teacher, 'How come you never talk about black scientists and inventors and pioneers?' And she looked at me and said, 'Because there aren't any.' ~ Malorie Blackman

The truth isn't going to bend itself to suit you. ~ Malorie Blackman

A love of books has opened so many doors for me. Stories have inspired me and taught me to aspire. ~ Malorie Blackman

But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you. ~ Malorie Blackman

Who did it, Sephy?' She repeated. 'Who beat you up? 'Cause whoever it was, I'll kill them. ~ Malorie Blackman

Was that all love did for you? Made you give up and give in? Left you open to pain and hurt? ~ Malorie Blackman

The status quo is never news, only challenges to it. ~ Malorie Blackman

He thought astrology was a load of bosh! Didn't believe in stars and planets telling his fortune or anyone else's. ~ Malorie Blackman

It was because I was scared. Scared of standing out, scared of being invisible. Scared of seeming too big, scared of being too small. ~ Malorie Blackman

Never, ever allow yourself to feel. Feelings kill. ~ Malorie Blackman

I'm a voice for children's books and children's reading. ~ Malorie Blackman

Books and knowledge don't make for a safe world. Just the opposite. Books and knowledge are facets of the truth and the truth can be very dangerous. ~ Malorie Blackman

I don't believe in regrets. There are a few things I'd do differently, but I can't go back in time and redo them, however much I might wish to. All I can do is learn from past mistakes and move forward. ~ Malorie Blackman

Even if we had gone away together when I wanted us to, we would've been together for a year, maybe two. But sooner or later, other people would've found a way to wedge us apart. ~ Malorie Blackman

His eyes were a lot older than fifteen.
Persephone Hadley(,regarding Callum McGregor) ~ Malorie Blackman

Part of my job as Children's Laureate is to visit schools and talk about my love of books and stories and encourage them all to do it as well - to read, to write, to never be afraid of their own voice. Because we all have something to say. ~ Malorie Blackman

Boys don't cry, but men do. ~ Malorie Blackman

So why did you want to kiss me?"
"We're friends aren't we?" Callum shrugged.
I relaxed into a smile. "Of course we are."
"And if you can't kiss your friends who can you kiss?" Callum smiled. ~ Malorie Blackman

I can't stop thinking about what might have been ... I can't stop imagining the two of us together. My body burns at the thought of it. Sephy and I might've been together for ever.
- Callum McGregor ~ Malorie Blackman

What was it about the differences in others that scared some people so much? ~ Malorie Blackman

When I was a teenager, reading for me was as normal, as unremarkable as eating or breathing. Reading gave flight to my imagination and strengthened my understanding of the world, the society I lived in, and myself. More importantly, reading was fun, a way to live more than one life as I immersed myself in each good book I read. ~ Malorie Blackman

When life knocks you down, keep getting up. ~ Malorie Blackman

Children will go with any story as long as it's good, but white adults sometimes think that if a black child's on the cover, it is perhaps not for them. ~ Malorie Blackman

Don't hate me for wanting to change the way things are. I believe in you, Callum. You can change the world, I know you can. But not like this, I'm not trying to be magnanimous or patronizing. I genuinely want to help but ... ~ Malorie Blackman

If you can only have one, which means more to you? Being someone or making a difference
-Lynny ~ Malorie Blackman

I would like to champion diverse forms like graphic novels and works told in verse and diverse writers and illustrators and diverse authors as well. ~ Malorie Blackman

Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while. ~ Malorie Blackman

Life isn't about quantity, it's about quality. ~ Malorie Blackman

But faith is so easy to hold onto when you don't need it. And so hard to find when you do. ~ Malorie Blackman

Shakespeare's 'Othello' was inspired by Cinthio's 'A Moorish Captain'; his 'Hamlet' came from Saxo Grammaticus's 'Amleth.' ~ Malorie Blackman

The worst thing about being the laureate has been the attitude of a tiny minority of adults who haven't liked some of the things I'm supposed to have said and who have used it as an opportunity to be verbally abusive and nasty, but I haven't let it rule my world! ~ Malorie Blackman

When I was a child, we used to look forward to the end of the day when we would hear another ten minutes of a story. ~ Malorie Blackman

Just remember, Callum when you're floating up and up in your bubble, that bubbles have a habit of bursting. The higher you climb, the further you have to fall. ~ Malorie Blackman

He was constantly surprising me like that. I had thought I didn't like surprises, but I found I did when they came from him. ~ Malorie Blackman

Apart from anything else, I find boots are too hot except in wintry weather. At home I usually wear a sweater, shirt and slacks. ~ Honor Blackman

People invest in your ability to deliver to them a more favorable future. ~ Jeff Blackman

One day I'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream
and I'll tell her to never stop
I will kiss her before I lay her down at night
and will tell her a story so she knows
how it is and how it must be for her to survive
I'll tell her to set things on fire
and keep them burning
I'll teach her that fire will not consume her
that she must use it ~ Nicole Blackman

Someone's writing down your mistakes, someone's documenting your downfall. ~ Nicole Blackman

You will start a band.
You will start a magazine.
You will start a family.
You will finish nothing. ~ Nicole Blackman

There have been plenty of very bare hotels with couples humping next door. I don't stay in very grand hotels. ~ Honor Blackman

California: the valley of the sun. It would be just his luck that she was here, where the daylight hours seemed to last longer than anywhere else. Where, even if he found her, he'd be bound to staying in the shadows as she walked in the light. ~ Rose Blackman

If you keep asking for what is best, God will give you very good chance to achieve it, even if you don't believe in God. ~ Bill Blackman

Bittersweet yes, but what was a simple love story compared to the movement of the great world? ~ Brit Malorie

Make up your mind as she makes up her face
She'll never really know her place
You'll lay on her frame and give her a new name
And bless her with all you can spare
Empty as wire, violent as fire
You'll carve her out of thin air

She's crashed home and cruised your world
But you can't get the Belfast out of the girl
This is how you throw her, you think you know her
Empty as wire, violent as fire

She hasn't left you yet but she will
By airplane ticket or kill-me pills
Sewn into her dress, she can't refuse
(careful what you love, what you abuse)
She knows violence, she knows please
Her hands for cuffing and she says nothing
And hooks her hands behind her knees

You fuck her flag and feel it unfurl
But you can't get the Belfast out of the girl. ~ Nicole Blackman

South Africa is the most beautiful country I have been to. Canada is also hugely underrated. ~ Honor Blackman

No More Avengers! There's nothing new to get out of it - I want to go forward, not backward. ~ Honor Blackman

Whether you're in bed or in court, everybody gets off. ~ Nicole Blackman

I'm the slowest reader in the world, because I perform it all in my head. ~ Honor Blackman