Top 15 Jane Yolen Quotes

I’m not saying it was all for the best. (That’s one of the great stupid phrases of all time, imho.)

Did we do wrong in believing, Marina?" Mom asked suddenly.
"Never in believing, Mom," I said. "Just in what we believed.

But I scolded myself, That’s magical thinking, Marina. Consider instead what’s real.

I took a deep breath. God…I prayed.
And then I realize that I had nothing more to say to him.
Nothing at all.

The thing about signs from God is that you can never be sure.
In the morning, going to the Porta Potti, I saw a deer. There was also a dead pigeon being a smorgas-bird for crows near the perimeter when I went with a message for an Angel. And the shed skin of some small snake that Grahame had collected.
If those were signs, what did they mean?
God loved me?
God hated me?
God didn’t care?…
I saw more signs than I can remember.
The moon was still shining like a pale penny at noon.
There was an eagle wheeling overhead at four.
A pair of bluejays squabbled in a fir tree when I came out of the Place of Eating after dinner.
God was saying yes?
God was saying no?
God wasn’t speaking at all?

We had more church after supper, with a long sermon from Reverend Beelson. He talked about wars and earthquakes and floods as signs that the End was coming. Which made me wonder if he had somehow managed to not notice that wars, earthquakes, and floods have been going on since the beginning of history.
But I didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t worth the effort.

But you know how it is: As soon as you decide to forget something, your brain comes to the conclusion that it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.

I actually said a little prayer of my own then, my first since we had arrived: Please, God—get me out of this nuthouse!

But when I asked Mom, she shrugged and looked up at the sky. She had given up looking at me when we talked.
“Reverend Beelson told us God would provide,” she said, as if reading that in the clouds. “And he does not lie.” It wasn’t clear if she meant Reverend Beelson or God.

Dad, everyone knows Beelson is a nutcase! You should hear the things they say about him in school."
My father looked at me sadly. "I thought you didn't believe in basing your life on what everyone else says, Mr. Nonconformist."
"OK, skip what everyone else says. I think he's nuts.

We are all sleeping princesses some time. But it is better to be fully awake, don't you think?"..."Americans do not want to be awake?"
"Oh," Becca said, "we like the truth all right. When it's tidy."
"Truth is never tidy. Only fairy tales.

Wars may make heroes of men, but not all the time.

Wars do not make heroes of everyone.

It is not crazy to want to know the past. It is only crazy to live there, like so many of the aristocracy.

She hated to lie but she hated arguments even more.