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1 " To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much. "
― Diana Wynne Jones , Fire and Hemlock
2 " The truth between two people always cuts two ways. "
3 " Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things. "
4 " But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them "
5 " Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel. "
6 " Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look. "
7 " I’m getting a figure now, by the way. If I breathe in, I almost have a waist. How about you?”“Sort of,” said Polly. As Granny remarked when Polly introduced her to Fiona, both their figures were a pinch of faith, a spoonful of charity, and the rest entirely hope. But she admired Fiona’s red hair and told them both not to wish their lives away. (p. 259-260) "
8 " People kept coming up to her all day, saying, “Is it true what Nina says—you come from a broken home?”“Broken right in half,” Polly replied to each one. “There’s a hole in the middle where the garden is. You get rained on trying togo upstairs.” (p. 154) "
9 " Granny always made Polly think of biscuits. She had a dry, shortbread sort of way to her, with a hidden taste that came out afterwards. Her kitchen had a biscuit smell to it, a nutty, butter smell like no other kitchen. (p. 9) "
10 " It took only a few bars to assure her that Thomas Lynn was a very good cellist indeed. His playing had that drive to it which gave you the sense of the shape of the music opening out before him as he played. And he kept that drive and shape, whether the cello was grumbling against the piano, crisply duetting, or out on its own, coaxed into hollow golden song. That feeling of pattern being made, Polly thought, that I had in the pano. Except that this was so expert and so tried that it was hard to believe that it was being done with a musical instrument in somebody’s hands. (p. 360) "
11 " I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening. "
12 " I don’t think I will get married,” Polly said as she stood up. “I’m going to train to be a hero instead. "
13 " Mr. Lynn gave her one of his considering looks. "People are strange," he said. "Usually they're much stranger than you think. Start from there and you'll never be unpleasantly surprised. Do you fancy doughnuts? "
14 " Polly finished her huge narrative during the summer term. The day after she had finished it, she went round with the oddest mixture of feelings, pride at having got it done, sick of the sight of it and glad it was over, and completely lost without it. "
15 " If you were able to hear lime juice, it would sound like violins. "
16 " Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. "
17 " You've rotted your mind with reading books. "
18 " That is the path of Wickedness, though some call it the Road to Heaven. "
19 " She was so happy that she had gone quiet all over. She felt like someone listening to great chords of music that were not to be interrupted by speaking. (p. 152) "
20 " people do lose sight of their ideals quite often in adolescence and young adulthood; they tend to see life as far too complex and then come up with the idea that things are only real and valid if they are unpleasant or boring. "
