Young Adult Authors

"The word permanent... had its own kind of revenge on those who misused it, for the Bible said that nothing was permanent and everything came and went."

"What use the green river, the gold place, if time and death pinned human in the pocket of my land not rest from taking underground the green all-willowed and white rose and bean flower and morning-mist picnic of song in pepper-pot breast of thrush?"

"I said to Missionar same way. I said heads in basket. I said Soldat, bandit same way. I told Missionar."

"[A young mission worker in Shanghai told him that] China's nothing but a loosely allied group of principalities that establish whatever law there is through force of arms."

"An acrobat is lucky to die with the price of a coffin in his pocket."

"You Big Swords think you're good riders, good cavalrymen, but you have a long way to go, and you'll never be Mongols."

"[H]is brain, shaped by milleniums of acceptance of authority, has formed the idea that by obeying an order, any order given by someone in authority, he can save his own life, or, perhaps more importantly, somehow protect his ancestors' land."

"Look, children, it's very simple. What's going to happen is this. If you people go forward, we eat bread. If you people retreat, we eat sticks. That is all there is to war. Let no one tell you different."

"At the end of the day you want something. Even if you don't know what it is."

"Peasants can fool you They give in like sheep. They run away and hide. They offer their daughters if you'll let them alone. But suddenly one of them does a thing like this [and tries to kill you]."

"His batteries north of the swamp open fire on the nearest hill, which will later be assaulted. Batteries eastward, in front of the lake and the knoll where he stands, are rolled forward almost to the transverse road, between willow trees.."

"Tang is the best soldier in China"

"In his country and mine, a bridge builder never sells guns. [...] In China would a scholar sell guns?"

"Soldiers get paid sometimes. Bandits have to fend for themselves. But when the warlords don't have the money, their soldier become bandits. [...] Peking's supposed to pay the warlords. I mean, they're official generals, servants of the government , right? Most of them are bandits is what I say."

"In China a general's power goes as far as his troops can march in a few days. But from what I know of General Tang, he won't let this insult pass."

"Fundamentally, the camera is nothing more than a light-tight box, having an arrangement for holding a light-sensitive substance (plate or film) and a device (lens or pinhole) for projecting on this sensitive substance an image of objects external to the camera."

"Be the day short or be the day long, at last it weareth to evening song."

"They did not talk or want to talk. It was as if they were afraid to talk for fear of spoiling something beautiful. But Anne had never felt so near Katherine Brooke before. By some magic of its own the winter night had brought them together . . . almost together but not quite."

"I wended my way to the graveyard this evening," wrote Anne to Gilbert after she got home. "I think 'wend your way' is a lovely phrase and I work it in whenever I can. It sounds funny to say I enjoyed my stroll in the graveyard but I really did. Miss Courtaloe's stories were so funny. Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can't believe they really did. Somebody has said that 'hate is only love that has missed its way.' I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other . . . just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you . . . and I think death would show it to them."

"We miss so much out of life if we don't love. The more we love the richer life is—even if it is only some little furry or feathery pet."

"We stood there and talked while Elizabeth sipped her milk daintily and she told me all about Tomorrow. The Woman had told her that Tomorrow never comes, but Elizabeth knows better. It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen . . . wonderful things. She may even have a day to do exactly as she likes in, with nobody watching her . . . though I think Elizabeth feels that is too good to happen even in Tomorrow. Or she may find out what is at the end of the harbor road . . . that wandering, twisting road like a nice red snake, that leads, so Elizabeth thinks, to the end of the world. Perhaps the Island of Happiness is there. Elizabeth feels sure there is an Island of Happiness somewhere where all the ships that never come back are anchored, and she will find it when Tomorrow comes."

"I remembered Elizabeth had never laughed once during our talk. I feel that she hasn't learned how. The great house is so still and lonely and laughterless. It looks dull and gloomy even now when the world is a riot of autumn color. Little Elizabeth is doing too much listening to lost whispers."

"Life had taught her to be brave, to be patient, to love, to forgive."

"Her confusion put him at ease and he forgot to be shy; besides, even the shyest of men can sometimes be quite audacious in moonlight."

"A slender shapely young aspen rose up before them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness."

"It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter."

"Gilbert was friendly—very friendly—far too friendly....But Anne no longer found it satisfying. The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale and scentless by contrast."

"I like wind," he said. "A day when there is no wind seems to me dead. A windy day wakes me up." He gave a conscious laugh. "On a calm day I fall into day dreams. No doubt you know my reputation, Miss West. If I cut you dead the next time we meet don't put it down to bad manners. Please understand that it is only abstraction and forgive me—and speak to me."

"Anne, do you know, I believe I shall always love you after this. I don't think I'll ever feel that dreadful way about you again. Talking it all out seems to have done away with it, somehow. It's very strange—and I have thought it so real and bitter. It's like opening the door of a dark room to show some hideous creature you've believed to be there—and when the light steams in your monster turns out to have been just a shadow, vanishing when the light comes. It will never come between us again."

"What a comfort one familiar face is in a howling wilderness of strangers!"

""Why did you kill Maurice Lennox?" she asked reproachfully."

"But feeling is so different from knowing. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul."

"I wouldn't give up altogether," said Mr. Harrison reflectively. "I'd write a story once in a while, but I wouldn't pester editors with it. I'd write of people and places like I knew, and I'd make my characters talk everyday English; and I'd let the sun rise and set in the usual quiet way without much fuss over the fact. If I had to have villains at all, I'd give them a chance, Anne—I'd give them a chance. There are some terrible bad men in the world, I suppose, but you'd have to go a long piece to find them—though Mrs. Lynde believes we're all bad. But most of us have got a little decency somewhere in us."

"But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had."

"She found, however, that revenge hurts nobody quite so much as the one who tries to inflict it."

"And Gilbert was dying!"

"“No!” Audrey smacked me in the chest. “You eat that bacon and you love it because it’s delicious. You don’t fret over whether you’ll ever have bacon again. You just eat the bacon.”"

"I remembered what Jamie had said, that love doesn't solve anything. Maybe. But it helps."

"Mace," I said, struck by a thought, "did you ever think that all those people in those cars have a whole separate story to them, that it's just as important to them as our stuff is to us, and we don't know anything about it. Maybe sometime we'll run across somebody and two years ago they were driving past us on the highway and we never knew it. Like sometimes we meet people and bump off of them and never see them again and we never know why paths cross."

"It was weird being lonesome in a place full of people."

"Blue said, "I can't get in this car. Do you know what's happening behind me? I don't even want to look." Henry said, "How about you give me the finger and shout at me now and withdraw with your principles?" He smiled winningly and held up three fingers. He counted to two with devil horns. "This is incredibly unnecessary," Blue told him, but she could feel herself smiling. "Life's a show," he replied. He counted one with his middle finger, and then his face melted into exaggerated shock. Blue shouted, "Drop dead, you bastard!" "FINE!" Henry screamed back, with slightly more hysteria than the role required. He attempted to squeal out of the lot, stopped to take off the parking brake, and then limped out more sedately.""

"Once when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the straggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there. he closed his eyes and let the storm soak him. That was this kiss."

"It was this,: the future hanging heavy in the air, and Henry starting a quiet, drunk conversation about whether or not Blue would like to travel to Venezuela with him. Blue replying softly that she would, she very much would, and Gansey hearing the longing in her voice like he was being undone, like his own feelings were unbearably mirrored. I cant come? Gansey asked. Yes, you can meet us there in a fancy plane, Henry said. Don't be fooled by his fancy hair, Blue interjected, Gansey would hike. And warmth filled the empty caverns in Gansey's heart. He felt known."

"It was not my finest moment," Henry said. "My car and I have since made amends." "His electric car," Gansey inserted with subtlety, in case Blue had missed the environmental ramifications. Blue narrowed her eyes at Gansey and then pointed out, "You could bike to Aglionby from here." Henry wagged a finger. "True, true. But it is important to practise safe bicycling, and they have not yet made a helmet to accommodate my hair."

"His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match."

"She turned to Gansey. "Blue," he warned, but his voice was chaotic. This close, his throat was scented with mint and wool sweater and vinyl car seat, and Gansey, just Gansey. She said, "I just want to pretend. I want to pretend that I could.""

"She seemed to have neither sense of fullness nor taste, and would often combine foods in manners that struck Blue as problematic. She didn't believe in telling people how to live their lives (well, maybe a little), but it was hard to stand by and watch Gwenllian spread peanut butter on a cold hot dog."

""You guys have a death list?" Ronan broke in. "That is fucking dark. Am I on it?" "Some days, I wish," Blue said."

"Adam had turned down so many offers for help from Gansey. Money for school, money for food, money for rent. Pity and charity, Adam had thought. For so long, he'd wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam. Now he could see that it wasn't charity Gansey was offering. It was just truth. And something else: friendship of the unshakable kind. Friendships you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come stronger than before."

""This is the lady I spoke to on the phone all those months ago, right? How small she is. Are you done growing?" "What!" Blue said. Gansey felt it was time to remove Malory from the terminal."