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Monday, February 25, 2008
Recognize Yourself
Quote of the week:
But if you recognize yourself in these pages- if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it might be only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.
She could hear the grass singing to itself and the trees in the park murmuring in deep, sleepy voices. She could hear dandelions roaring and weeds pushing up out of cracks in the city pavement, and she could hear the slow voice of the sea saying "Old! Old! Old!" as it fell on the beach at the edge of town. Everything that was green Minnie could hear with her green ear.
I told my mom that I wanted to be a prodigy, that I wanted to play Carnegie Hall. I told her I wanted to play the piano. "Take it up with Domestic Affairs," she said. That's my mom's way of saying, "Talk to your dad."
It was not as if Maggie liked the coat. One or two of her friends had remarked, when she first wore it to school, "Nice." This was even worse than saying it was awful. Nice? Nobody had said it was cool or awesome. - Brian Jacques,The Ribbajack
The woods watched silently through the farthest east window of White Moss Manor as May tried to concentrate on her work. And sometimes, looking up from the curious project strewn across her desk, chewing on a pencil, May watched them back.
"Feeding the snakes every morning," she muttered, "Dusting the Books of Magic on Wednesdays and Saturdays, scraping moss off the stone lions' manes once a week, and once a year a tournament at Darkrock Castle! Nothing exciting ever happens here, Sysiphus. Never ever!"
Quote of the week: I loved that word! When I grew older, I used kira-kira to describe everything I liked: the beautiful blue sky, puppies, kittens, butterflys, colored kleenex.
"You're right." I click the seat belt across me and open my sketchbook to the back pages. That's where I keep all the rules I'm teaching David so if my someday-he'll-wake-up-a-regular-brother wish doesn't ever come true, at least he'll know how the world works, and I won't have to keep explaining things.
Once, words had been invisible to Miri, as unknown and uninteresting as the movements of a spider inside a rock wall. Now they appeared all around her, standing up, demanding notice- on the spines of books in the classroom, marking the barrels of food in the kitchen and storeroom, carved into a linder foundation stone: In the thirteenth year of the reign of King Jordan.
But that's okay, because the history of a kid is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball. And if you want to know what it was like back when Maniac Magee roamed these parts, well, just run your hand under your movie seat and be very, very careful not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.
Words Words filled the night like the fragrance of invisible flowers. Words made to measure, written by Orpheus with his doughpale hands, words taken fromthe book that Farid was clutching tightly and then fitted together into a new meaning. They spoke of another world, a world full of marvels and terrors.
The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages. "I'm sure it must be very comfortable sleeping with a hard, rectangular thing like that under your head," her father had teased the first time he found a book under her pillow. "Go on, admit it, the book whispers its story to you at night."
If she could only find it, Lucky was pretty sure she'd be able to figure out the difference between the things she could change and the things she couldn't, like in the little prayer of the anonymous people. Because sometimes Lucky wanted to change everything, all the bad things that had happened, and sometimes she wanted everything to stay the same forever.
Haley stood. Her arms hung slightly outwards from the rest of her and her hands dangled, useless and floppy with strangeness. She had never been in the same room with so many people in her life. She was used to the hushed and sequestered way Grandma and Grandad lived, where nobody ran about, or laughed much, and nobody ever shouted. These people were so lively and so loud.
And so they had set about choosing what to call themselves....
Kate said, "How about 'Mr. Benedict and the Great Kate Weath-'"
"Don't even finish that," said Reynie.
"The Mysterious Benedict Society," Constance said, rising as she spoke. Then she left the room, apparently convinced that no more discussion was necessary.
...her father had carried the dollhouse up to her room. There it sat on the floor across from her bed. It was nearly as tall as she was, and its dark gray Mansard roof and shadowy little rooms cast an aura of gloom over her bright bedroom. All at once she realized that she would have to be alone with it at night. It was the thought of that thing watching and waiting in the darkness...that suddenly brought on her tears.
Quote of the week:
uninteresting as the movements of a spider inside a rock wall. Now they appeared all around her, standing up, demanding notice- on the spines of books in the classroom, marking the barrels of food in the kitchen and storeroom, carved into a linder foundation stone: In the thirteenth year of the reign of King Jordan.
from her bed. It was nearly as tall as she was, and its dark gray Mansard roof and shadowy little rooms cast an aura of gloom over her bright bedroom. All at once she realized that she would have to be alone with it at night. It was the thought of that thing watching and waiting in the darkness...that suddenly brought on her tears.
Quote of the week: