Ransom Riggs Quotes

I knew there was something peculiar about you," she said. "And I mean that as the highest compliment. ~ Ransom Riggs

I swear on my life, one day I'll personally escort all those that hurt my sisters to Hell. ~ Ransom Riggs

He closed the laptop. A sure sign I was about to receive his full attention. ~ Ransom Riggs

But you can't feel bad every second, I wanted to tell her. Laughing doesn't make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you've forgotten. It just means you're human. ~ Ransom Riggs

Grandpa Portman really knew how to keep a secret, didn't he?""Are you kidding? The man was an emotional Fort Knox. ~ Ransom Riggs

Were you just smoking and chewing tobacco at the same time?"
"What are you my mom?"
"Do I look like I blow truckers for food stamps? ~ Ransom Riggs

I was left with the choice of wearing the pants either around my ankles or hitched up to my bellybutton. I decided the latter was the lesser of evils, so I went downstairs to have what would likely be the strangest meal of my life while dressed like a clown without makeup. ~ Ransom Riggs

I'd never asked what year it was here-1492? 1750?-though to the animals I guess it hardly mattered. This was a safe place apart from the world of people, and only in the world of people did the year make any difference. ~ Ransom Riggs

How could I possibly stay here and leave behind everthing I'd known? But after all I'd learned, how could I go home? ~ Ransom Riggs

You're getting overwhelmed," said Emma. "Big tasks always seem that way if you try and figure out every little piece of them beforehand. We have to take it bit by bit. ~ Ransom Riggs

Those who escaped the noose settled here, at the very bottom, the absolute edge of peculiar society. Exiled from the outcasts of outcasts ~ Ransom Riggs

Don't fight the pain, that's the key, my grandfather says. It's telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you. The pain says: Hello, I am not other than you; I am of the hollow, but I am you also. ~ Ransom Riggs

Emma laughed darkly. "It's a completely mad idea, I know. But my brain is a hope-making engine."
"I'm so glad," I said. "Mine is a worst-case-scenario generator."
"We need each other, then."
"Yes. But we already knew that, I think. ~ Ransom Riggs

Still having nightmares? I've got something for that. Panic attack on the school bus? This should do the trick. Can't sleep? Let's up the dosage. All those pills were making me fat and stupid, and I was still miserable, getting only three or four hours of sleep a night. ~ Ransom Riggs

I was the perfect automaton: blessed with ability but cursed with ignorance. ~ Ransom Riggs

and he seemed to remember himself, and said: "We found something else, though. ~ Ransom Riggs

There were too many things to be terrified of, a hundred horror scenarios all vying for attention in my brain. ~ Ransom Riggs

Every snapshot collector has obsessions. Some only collect photos of cars. Others like World War II, or babies, or old-timey girls in old-timey swimsuits. I happen to collect the weird stuff: photos that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a little. The uncanny. ~ Ransom Riggs

It was like robbing a bank: getting the money was only half the job. Then you had to get away with the money. ~ Ransom Riggs

You could never understand what it's like, being this close to death all the time. And ~ Ransom Riggs

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking. ~ Ransom Riggs

I liked this idea: that peculiarness wasn't a deficiency, but an abundance; that it wasn't we who lacked something normals had, but they who lacked peculiarness. That we were more, not less. ~ Ransom Riggs

Mainland Wales, was somewhere before us but only dimly visible, an inky smudge squatting along the far horizon. ~ Ransom Riggs

As we passed he returned grimly to his task, though his arthritic hands could hardly close around the stick. There was something almost regal about him, I thought; a defiance I admired. He was a holdout who refused to give up his post. The last watchmen at the end of the world. ~ Ransom Riggs

Brief prayers were muttered for Martin's soul, and then people began trading theories. Within minutes the place was a smoke-filled den of tipsy Sherlock Holmses. ~ Ransom Riggs

It's not about destiny," I said, "but I do think there's balance in the world, and sometimes forces we don't understand intervene to tip the scales the right way. Miss ~ Ransom Riggs

Miracle. Curse. I hadn't quite worked out the difference. ~ Ransom Riggs

Which was just well: goodbyes had never been my strong suit anyway, and lately my life had felt like an unbroken series of them. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. ~ Ransom Riggs

You're supposed to, I think. Just like you were supposed to come to Cairnholm." "I don't believe in stuff like that. Fate. The stars. Destiny." "I didn't say destiny." "Supposed to is the same thing," I said. "Destiny is for people in books about magical swords. It's a lot of crap. ~ Ransom Riggs

Only birds can manipulate time. Therefore, all time manipulators must be able to take the form of a bird. ~ Ransom Riggs

Or I could go ahead alone and lie to Dad about it. After four seconds of intense deliberation, I was on my way. * ~ Ransom Riggs

They were natural storytellers and beautiful singers; innately charming people who treated us like long-lost cousins. ~ Ransom Riggs

The trouble with the merely unwise/deeply stupid line is that you often don't know which side you're on until it's too late. ~ Ransom Riggs

Everyone thinks I'm a coward. This is my chance to prove them wrong." "Don't throw your life away because of a few jokes made at your expense," said Hugh. "Who gives a whit what anyone else thinks? ~ Ransom Riggs

Still, I could have been kinder." She frowned, her eyes wandering. "Sibling relationships can be complex. I wonder, sometimes, if my own actions had some bearing upon the paths my brothers chose. Could I have been a better sister to them? Perhaps, as a young ymbryne, I was too focused on myself. ~ Ransom Riggs

But these weren't the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around
they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don't recognize them for what they are until it's too late. ~ Ransom Riggs

I haven't known you too long, but I feel I know your heart, and it's a strong, true thing - a peculiar heart - and I trust you." She ~ Ransom Riggs

Enoch's jaw fell open. "Are you telling me these chickens lay exploding eggs?!" he said. "Only when they get excited," said Addison. "Most of their eggs are quite safe - and delicious! But it was the exploding ones that earned them their rather unkind name: Armageddon chickens. ~ Ransom Riggs

How many times must I tell you," She called after him, "polite persons do not take their supper in the nude! ~ Ransom Riggs

What're you going to do," he said, "pollinate it to death? ~ Ransom Riggs

I wanted to tell her then that I loved her. I thought that might help, by grounding us in something we were sure about rather than everything we weren't. ~ Ransom Riggs

He let me go, and I went to take a shower and thought about Emma. Then I brushed my teeth and thought about Emma and washed my face and thought about Emma. After that I went to my room and took the apple she'd given me out of my pocket and set it on the nightstand, and then, as if to reassure myself she still existed, I got out my phone and looked through the pictures of her I'd taken that afternoon. ~ Ransom Riggs

If we've considered all the worst possibilities and one turns out to be true, we won't be completely unprepared for it. ~ Ransom Riggs

If even outcasts and downtrodden folk like yourselves can't muster a bit of compassion for others, then there's no hope for this world. ~ Ransom Riggs

An opportunist disguised as a friend can be every bit as dangerous as an outright enemy. ~ Ransom Riggs

The impostors in soldiers' costumes were nothing but animals themselves; more monstrous than even the hollowgast they controlled. The wights, at least, had minds that could reason - but they used that creative faculty to dismantle the world. To make living things into dead things. And for what? So that they might live a little longer. So that they might have a little more power over the world around them, and the creatures in it, for whom they cared so little.
Waste. Such a stupid waste. ~ Ransom Riggs

I wondered what this odd, well-spoken man was doing on Cairnholm, with his pleated slacks and half-baked poems, looking more like a bank manager than someone who lived on a windswept island with one phone and no paved roads. ~ Ransom Riggs

This is Deirdre," said Addison. "She's an emu-raffe, which is a bit like a donkey and a giraffe put together, only with fewer legs and a peevish temper. She's a terrible sore loser at cards," he added in a whisper. "Never play an emu-raffe at cards. Say hello, Deirdre! ~ Ransom Riggs

No, I don't blame him. Just miss him is all.'
'Still?'
'Every day. ~ Ransom Riggs

Have they built cities on the moon?" another boy asked hopefully.
"We left some garbage and a flag there in the sixties, but thats about it. ~ Ransom Riggs

I discovered Emerson's soporific qualities by falling asleep with my face in the book, drooling all over an essay called 'Self-Reliance' ... ~ Ransom Riggs

And it occurred to me, standing there, just breathing with her, quiet settling around us, that those might be the three most beautiful words in the English language. We have time. ~ Ransom Riggs

I tried to imagine telling my parents the truth. In that regard, the phone conversation is had with my father in the Underground had been a preview of coming attractions. He's lost it. Our son is insane. Or on drugs. Or maybe not in enough drugs. ~ Ransom Riggs

I'll chuck my guts if I have to carry this," Bronwyn said.
"I'd like to see that," Enoch grumbled, sounding offended. ~ Ransom Riggs

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries - but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was. ~ Ransom Riggs

Just because they knew it was lost didn't mean they knew how to let it go. ~ Ransom Riggs

All my life, normal people had mostly baffled me-the ridiculous ways they strove to impress one another, the mediocre goals that seemed to drive them, the banality of their dreams. The way people rejected anything that didn't fit their narrow paradigm of acceptability, as if those who thought or acted or dressed or dreamed differently from them were a threat to their very existence. ~ Ransom Riggs

I love being peculiar, Jacob- It's the very core of who i am. But there are days i wish i could turn it off. ~ Ransom Riggs

She moved to pinch me again but I blocked her hand. I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting. ~ Ransom Riggs

If my body was cold in the night mist, I didn't feel it. If the sea roared in my ears, I didn't hear it. If the rock I sat on was sharp and jagged, I hardly noticed. Everything outside the two of us was a distraction. ~ Ransom Riggs

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret. Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder. ~ Ransom Riggs

Millard! Who's the prime minister?"
"Winston Churchill," he said. "Have you gone daft?"
"What's the capital of Burma?"
"Lord, I've no idea. Rangoon?"
"Good! When's your birthday?"
"Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace! ~ Ransom Riggs

It felt like we were claiming the world for ourselves and our lives as our own. ~ Ransom Riggs

I knew then that, from now on, every word that passed between us would hurt, would be wrapped up with and marked by the pain of this moment, and that I needed to pull away now or it would never stop. So I nodded sadly, hugged her one more time, and retreated to a corner to sleep, because I was very, very tired. ~ Ransom Riggs

...it was both raining and shining outside - a bit of meteorological weirdness whose name no one can seem to agree on. ~ Ransom Riggs

I love you too, I wanted to say with as much hurtful sarcasm as I could muster, but she hadn't seen me, and I kept quiet. I did love her, of course, but mostly just because loving your mother is mandatory, not because she's someone I think I'd like very much if I met her walking down the street. Which she wouldn't be anyway; walking is for poor people ~ Ransom Riggs

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. ~ Ransom Riggs

He had been through hell and had a right to his secrets. ~ Ransom Riggs

bullets were a quick, impersonal way to kill. Using your hands, though - that took work. It required hate. It was a strange and sour thing to know that such hatred had been directed at me. That peculiars who didn't even know my name had, in a moment of collective madness, hated me enough to try to beat out my life with their fists. I felt shamed by it, dehumanized somehow, though I couldn't exactly understand why. It was something I'd have to reckon with, if one day I ever had the luxury of time to reckon with such things. I ~ Ransom Riggs

Their memory was something tangible and heavy, and I would carry it with me. ~ Ransom Riggs

And so Enoch held up Miss Peregrine's cage and she let out a great screeching cry. We answered with a cry of our own, both a victory yell and a lament, for everything lost and yet to be gained. ~ Ransom Riggs

Holmes says that "a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use" - and little else. ~ Ransom Riggs

Doubt is the pinprick in the life raft." She stepped close and we hugged. I could feel her trembling ever so slightly. She wasn't bulletproof. I knew then that my shaky faith in myself was starting to dig a hole in hers, and Emma's confidence was what held everything together. It was the life raft. ~ Ransom Riggs

They were of the past, and the past always mends itself, no matter how we interfere." "Which is why you can't go back and kill baby Hitler to stop the war from happening," said Enoch. "History heals itself. Isn't that interesting? ~ Ransom Riggs

Nowhere am I deadlier than in a field of wildflowers. ~ Ransom Riggs

If I never went home, what exactly would I be missing? I pictured my cold cavernous house, my friendless town full of bad memories, the utterly unremarkable life that had been mapped out for me. It had never once occurred to me, I realized, to refuse it. ~ Ransom Riggs

I used to dream of escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss. ~ Ransom Riggs

Perhaps she was born in the wrong body. ~ Ransom Riggs

I knew then that my shaky faith in myself was starting to dig a hole in hers, and Emma's confidence was what held everything together. ~ Ransom Riggs

If I had to shut my eyes it wouldn't have been any darker. We were like astronauts floating in a starless universe. ~ Ransom Riggs

I felt ashamed for having been jealous of his life, considering the price he'd paid for it, and I tried to feel lucky for the safe and unextraordinary one that I had done nothing to deserve ~ Ransom Riggs

The easiest kind of lying is when you leave things out of a story rather than make them up. ~ Ransom Riggs

Bombs are falling and we're reading stories, I thought. I have entered the realm of the insane. -Jacob ~ Ransom Riggs

She had a heart the size of France and the lucky few whom she loved, she loved with every square inch of it. But it's size made it dangerous. ~ Ransom Riggs

Because if Grandpa Portman wasn't honorable and good, I wasn't sure anyone could be. ~ Ransom Riggs

Even ymbrynes can't touch them. In the stories, only special adepts called librarians can see and handle them - and a librarian hasn't been born for a thousand years. If the library exists, all Jack would find there are empty shelves. ~ Ransom Riggs

It's called Stockholm syndrome," I said. "When people start to sympathize with their captors. ~ Ransom Riggs

Death from the skies! ~ Ransom Riggs

Don't worry, Xavier's on the job," said Sharon. We heard a squeak and looked down to see the rat in question with a piece of cheese in its mouth. Sharon picked him up and scolded him. "Keys, I said, not cheese! ~ Ransom Riggs

metabolism-wrecking medications ~ Ransom Riggs

What you are is three-quarters stupid. ~ Ransom Riggs

Because, I thought, a line from Tolkien materializing in my head, one does not simply walk into Mordor. ~ Ransom Riggs

because the easiest kind of lying is when you leave things out of a story rather than make them up, I passed with flying colors. ~ Ransom Riggs

But in general that is how we prefer to be thought of, for it tends to keep away unwanted visitors. These days fewer and fewer people believe in those things - fairies and goblins and all such nonsense - and thus common folk no longer make much of an effort to seek us out. That makes our lives a good bit easier. Ghost stories and scary old houses have served us well, too - though not, apparently, in your case. ~ Ransom Riggs

Find the bird, find the loop, Yakob vai don't you understand you goddamned stupid yutzi ~ Ransom Riggs

He was, I suppose, my best friend, which is a less pathetic way of saying he was my only friend. ~ Ransom Riggs

It was my grandfather's island. Looming and bleak, folded in mist, guarded by a million screeching birds, it looked like some ancient fortress constructed by giants.
As I gazed up at its sheer cliffs, tops disappearing in a reef of ghostly clouds, the idea that this was a magical place didn't seem so ridiculous. ~ Ransom Riggs

Had I been in some kind of psychotic haze all morning? Was I in one now? ~ Ransom Riggs

The sirens droned on, a soprano counterpoint to the bombs' relentless bass, their pitch so eerily human it sounded like every soul in London had taken to their rooftops to cry out collective despair. ~ Ransom Riggs

What a peculiar lot you are, even for peculiars. ~ Ransom Riggs