Home > Author > E.L. Konigsburg
81 " You must thing of those six steps not as preparation for the beginning but as the beginning itself" p10 "
― E.L. Konigsburg , The View from Saturday
82 " How can you know what is missing if you’ve never met it? You must know of something’s existence before you can notice its absence. "
83 " What happened was: they became a team, a family of two. There had been times before they ran away when they acted like a team, but those were very different from feeling like a team. Becoming a team didn't mean the end of their arguments. But it did mean that the arguments became a part of the adventure, became discussions not threats. To an outsider the arguments would appear to be the same because feeling like part of a team is something that happens invisibly. You might call it caring. You could even call it love. And it is very rarely, indeed, that it happens to two people at the same time-- especially a brother and a sister who had always spent more time with activities than they had with each other. "
― E.L. Konigsburg , From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
84 " Had she been born 500 years sooner, Raphael would have chosen her as a model for his cherubs. Tendrils of bright red hair framed her face, a spray of freckles powdered her nose, and she was as plump as a perfectly ripened peach. Raphael probably would have painted out the freckles, and that would have been a mistake. Like brushing cinnamon off cinnamon toast. "
― E.L. Konigsburg
85 " Jamie spied a Hershey's almond bar still in its wrapper lying in the corner of the landing. He picked it up and tore open one corner. "Was it bitten into?" asked Claudia. "No," Jamie smiled. "Want half?" "You better not touch it," Claudia warned. "It's probably poisoned or filled with marijuana, so you'll eat it and become either dead or a dope addict". Jamie was irritated. "Couldn't it just happen that someone dropped it?" "I doubt that. Who would drop a whole candy bar and not know it? That's like leaving a statue in a taxi". "
86 " She found Jamie standing on that corner, probably one of the most civilized street corners in the whole world, consulting a compass and announcing that when they turned left, they would be heading 'due northwest.' Claudia was tired and cold at the tips; her fingers, her toes, her nose were all cold while the rest of her was perspiring under the weight of her winter clothes. She never liked feeling either very hot or very cold, and she hated feeling both at the same time. 'Head due northwest. Head due northwest,' she mimicked. 'Can't you simply say turn right or turn left as everyone else does? Who do you think you are? Daniel Boone? I'll bet no one's used a compass in Manhattan since Henry Hudson. "
87 " During her lifetime Eleanor of Aquitaine had not been a patient woman. While she had lived, she had learned to bide her time, but biding one's time is a very different thing from patience. "
― E.L. Konigsburg , A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
88 " When the sun came through the [stained-glass] windows, I felt that I was standing inside of God's kaleidoscope. "
89 " Whenever someone makes out a guest list, the people not on it become officially uninvited, and that makes them the enemies of the invited. Guest lists are just a way of choosing sides. "
90 " I want all the books on the shelves. I want the books with dinosaur words like nigger that show the skeletons in our national closet. I want books with the word cunt as well as the word kike. Words don't scare me. Suppressing them does. "
― E.L. Konigsburg , Talk, Talk : A Children's Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups
91 " I am a passenger on the spaceship Earth. "
92 " I don't think there is any feeling I like more than the one that someone is glad to see me. —Connor Kane "
― E.L. Konigsburg , Silent to the Bone
93 " Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don't talk about doing it. Do it. Finish. "
94 " There were times in school when a person had to do things fast, cheap, and without character. "
95 " Going to school- picking an appleGetting an education- eating it "
― E.L. Konigsburg , Up from Jericho Tel
96 " But happiness is not always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole thing can be covered with a plain dark rind. "
97 " Jamie: The only kind of deal that I can make is with money, and we haven't got any of that.Mrs. Frankweiler: You are very poor indeed if that is the only kind of deal you can make "
98 " Even after more than five hundred years in Heaven, Eleanor of Aquitaine still missed quarreling and dressing up. Eleanor missed strong, sweet smells. Eleanor missed feeling hot and being cold. Eleanor missed Henry. She missed life. "
99 " Next to any kind of elegance, Claudia loved good clean smells. "
100 " The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”― E. L. Konigsburg, From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler "