Home > Work > In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4)
21 " No one serves their friends by grinding themselves into dust on the altar of compassion. "
― Seanan McGuire , In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4)
22 " She was Katherine, she was the teacher's pet, and when she grew up, she was going to be a librarian, because she couldn't imagine knowing there was a job that was all about books and not wanting to do it. "
23 " The Market knows, you see, when someone is acting to the best of their ability. The Market doesn't punish us for having limitations. It only reminds us that fair value applies to everyone. "
24 " Wood does not customarily glitter. Few things do, unless they are attempting to lure something closer to themselves. Sparkle and shine are pleasures reserved for predators, who can afford the risk of courting attention. The exceptions - which exist, for all things must have exceptions - are almost entirely poisonous, and will sicken whatever they lure. So even the exception feeds into the rule, which states that a bright, shimmering thing is almost certainly looking to be seen, and that which hopes to be seen is persuing its own agenda. "
25 " There is a choice here, hanging like smoke in the autumn air. She can cry for the friends she doesn't have, mourn for the games she isn't playing, or she can let them go. She can be the kind of girl who doesn't need anyone else to keep her happy, the kind of girl who smiles at adults and keeps her own company. She can be content. "
26 " It is an interesting thing, to trust one's feet. The heart may yearn for adventure while the head thinks sensibly of home, but the feet are a mixture of the two, dipping first one way and then the other. "
27 " It is so often easy, when one has the luxury of being sure a thing will never happen, to be equally sure of one's answers. "
28 " Paperwork is a magic in and of itself. It makes spouses out of strangers, makes homes out of houses. "
29 " But she she didn't want to be someone they could care for. She didn't want to be a Kate or a Kitty or even a Kat - all perfectly lovely, serviceable names, for perfectly lovely, serviceable people. People she already knew, at six years of age, that she didn't want to be. She was Katherine Lundy. Her family loved her as Katherine Lundy. If the children in the yard next door or on the playground couldn't find her worth loving the same way, she wasn't going to change for them. "
30 " Katherine ignored her. Not maliciously: Katherine frequently didn't hear her name the first time it was called, preferring to keep her nose in her book and continue whatever adventure she had decided was more interesting than the actual world around her. "
31 " It is enough," she said finally. "But there will be another, less tangible cost.""Anything," said Lundy."That word, that promise, strike it from your tongue," said the Archivist. "With that word, I could ask for the heart in your chest and the blood in your veins and you could not stop me. There is no value fair enough to warrant an open check. "
32 " There are many good things in the world, and each of them happens for the first time only once, and never again. "
33 " Some questions are okay. You can't have people without questions. People are too curious for that, they'd get all gummed up and stop working right if you didn't let them have questions once in a while. But there's a big difference between asking for things and only asking. 'Do you think there will be grapes sometime this week' isn't the same as 'can I have some of those grapes.' Do you understand? "
34 " Blow out the candles , Katherine," urges her father, and she does, and she's happy. She's happy.There: that wasn't so difficult, and it mattered. Small things often do. A single pebble in the road can go unnoticed until it becomes stuck inside a horse's hoof, and then oh, the damage it can do. "
35 " You can’t save anyone if you neglect yourself. All you can do is fall slowly with them. "
36 " Do you remember what I said last night?” “That I needed to feed myself before I tried to buy Moon’s debt,” said Lundy. Her jaw set stubbornly. “That doesn’t seem fair.” “Doesn’t it? Hunger makes us foolish, causes us to make poor decisions without realizing how poor they are. If you want to help her, you need to help yourself first. No one serves their friends by grinding themselves into dust on the altar of compassion. "
37 " Parents lied to children when they thought it was necessary, or when they thought that it would somehow make things better. It only made sense that children should lie to parents in the same way. "
38 " The Archivist, who had seen a thousand friendships become unbalanced by assumptions about who owed who, even when no one walked cloaked in feathers, was silent for a moment. "
39 " Children are capable of grasping complex ideas long before most people give them credit for, wrapping them in a soothing layer of nonsense and illogical logic "
40 " that which hopes to be seen is pursuing its own agenda. "