Anne Ursu Quotes

#1. It snowed right before Jack stopped talking to Hazel, fluffy white flakes big enough to show their crystal architecture, like perfect geometric poems.

Anne Ursu

#2. Ladders were not inherently dangerous, he told himself, people climbed them every day, and most of them lived.

Anne Ursu

#3. She'd read once that if you ran into a bear in the woods you should avoid eye contact and you shouldn't run away, but all she knew about wolves is that you should never tell them how to find your grandmother's house.

Anne Ursu

#4. He lifted his hand to knock, but then he stopped. He could go neither forward nor back, so he simply stayed that way - hand frozen in the air.

Anne Ursu

#5. We're starting with the villain," Martin interjected. "Because they are the most fun.

Anne Ursu

#6. Something rose in Oscar's chest, like a flower blossoming all at once. It grew until it filled him and threatened to spill over everywhere. The words [he] spoke touched a longing so deep Oscar hadn't even known it was there.

Anne Ursu

#7. You see," the lord explained, "everyone else has them. You wouldn't want your child to be the only one who had flaws. What would it be like for them?

Anne Ursu

#8. She saw signs of another village in the distance - she smelled smoke and saw the faint glow of something like civilization. But there was nothing for her there. She had to go get Jack now, and anyway, she was safer out here with the wolves.

Anne Ursu

#9. She looked at her shelves, filled with books in which the bad stuff that happened to people was caused by things like witches who lured people into the woods. In a weird way, the world seemed to make more sense that way.

Anne Ursu

#10. Somebody sniggered. From Somewhere int he back of the room someone else sneered, "Yeah, Hazel," which was not the greatest insult ever, but one thing Hazel had learned at her new school was when it comes to insults it's the thought that counts

Anne Ursu

#11. It was a beautiful lie that they had all been telling themselves - that you could have magic without monsters.

Anne Ursu

#12. In woods where the woodsmen told lies, maybe it was the wolves who told the truth.

Anne Ursu

#13. The Asterians didn't call themselves anything special, because when everyone else refers to you as the shining people, you really don't have to do it yourself.

Anne Ursu

#14. It would not hurt, after all, to walk into the woods.

Anne Ursu

#15. What are you supposed to do when something like that happens? Do you hold on or let go?

Anne Ursu

#16. He wanted to leave his mom and her unseeing eyes. He was the invisible boy looking for the place where no one could find him, where he did not have to feel invisible anymore.

Anne Ursu

#17. Now she would be part girl, part hardening gray sludge. And no one would notice the difference.

Anne Ursu

#18. Jack hesitated still, and Hazel wanted to say something comforting, give him some bright plastic flowers of words, but Jack would see them for what they were. Jack knew how to see things.

Anne Ursu

#19. Now, Hazel was not stupid. She knew that just because you see a piece of cake and a sign that says EAT ME doesn't mean you should actually do it. And just because two giant ravens point you in the direction of a path doesn't mean you should take it. But it was the only path she had.

Anne Ursu

#20. But if you were Charlotte, and you had been feeling that life was some cosmic joke that had no punchline, and in the space of a moment you had gone from being Charlotte-without-a-kitten to being Charlotte-with-a-kitten, you too would have found it nothing short of remarkable.

Anne Ursu

#21. She just eyed them coolly, as if they were nothing to her, as if their nothingness surprised and slightly repelled her.

Anne Ursu

#22. Something stirred inside her, some urge to plunge into the new white world and see what it had to offer. It was like she'd walked out of a dusty old wardrobe and found Narnia.

Anne Ursu

#23. It was not supposed to be this easy. This was to be the final confrontation. There was to be struggle, torment, despair. But the witch - who was the only person in the woods who wanted nothing - was not what Hazel had to defeat.

Anne Ursu

#24. She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went along, gaining strength for her final battle. All she was doing was losing things, one thing at a time.

Anne Ursu

#25. She wore weird baggy clothes and seemed like the sort of person who might tesser in some dark and stormy night.

Anne Ursu

#26. At each step there is a small moment of transformation that cannot be overlooked or rushed. And these moments should not be, because they are beautiful.

Anne Ursu

#27. The halls were empty. Charlotte had missed the first bell and would be late, again. Her homeroom teacher would ask her for an excuse and she would say, 'Overwhelming feeling of dread.' That was going to go over nicely.

Anne Ursu

#28. This is what happens on journeys - the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for.

Anne Ursu

#29. The water was holding [him] close and telling him beautiful lies, and since it was the end, he chose to believe them.

Anne Ursu

#30. Someone who thinks of possessing a fountain made of a winged baby with water shooting out of its mouth must not have too many troubles.

Anne Ursu

#31. He could still escape - the fear was in front of him, and all he had to do was wrench free and run in the other direction. But he kept walking forward, straight into its embrace.

Anne Ursu

#32. No one took her seriously because she was small and feathered, a strange little dino-bird, but she had a sickle claw and she was not afraid to use it.

Anne Ursu

#33. If shadows were caused by the interplay between light and Life, a child's was still forming. An adult's was inextricably bound to his body, but a child had a tenuous relationship to his own permanence, and thus, his own shadow.

Anne Ursu

#34. Sometimes superheroes are born, sometimes they are made. Sometimes they make themselves. Sometimes all it takes is will.

Anne Ursu

#35. She understood. They were plastic flowers of words - but they looked nice on the surface.

Anne Ursu

#36. I think if you'll look around, my boy,' he said gently, 'you'll find that no one is quite right. But we all do the best we can.

Anne Ursu

#37. This is what it is to live in the world. You have to give yourself over to the cold, at least a little bit.

Anne Ursu

#38. It turned out she did not need the compass. It was easy to head in the other direction from the lair of the witch. All you had to do was move away from the thing pulling at you.

Anne Ursu

#39. She had believed that because someone needed saving they were savable.

Anne Ursu

#40. They said words they did not mean, and their conversations seemed to follow all kinds of rules - rules that no one has ever explained to Oscar.

Anne Ursu

#41. Fiercely original and uncommonly lovely, The Witch's Boy is equal parts enchanting and haunting. Kelly Barnhill is master of truly potent and unruly magic; luckily for readers, she chooses to use her powers for good.

Anne Ursu

#42. The apprentice's name was Wolf, because sometimes the universe is an unsubtle place.

Anne Ursu

#43. His words sounded foolish to his own ears. He was not impressive. He was small like the world.

Anne Ursu

#44. The witch raised one careful eyebrow. "I? I want nothing," she told Hazel. "Don't you see? I want nothing.

Anne Ursu

#45. The woods do not mean you well.

Anne Ursu

#46. There were so many Jacks she had known, and he had known so many Hazels. And maybe she wasn't going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.

Anne Ursu

#47. She did not like seeing her loved ones like this, bent over with sorrow; everything in her wanted to cry out, to thrash and scream at the sight of it. But she knew that great grief came from great love, and that their grief was an honor to her. And she did love them so very much.

Anne Ursu

#48. She'd been to Narnia, Wonderland, Hogwarts, Dictionopolis. She had tessered, fallen through the rabbit hole, crossed the ice bridge into the unknown world beyond.

Anne Ursu

#49. This was not [him]. It was a thing, with all the [him]-ness gone from it. Death takes the person and leaves his shell behind, like a hollowed-out tree.

Anne Ursu

#50. Hazel could not explain that she had forgotten, that there was Jack and soul-sucking villains, and sometimes you are too scratchy to remember the things you are supposed to do, even if you do feel really bad about it later.

Anne Ursu

#51. She didn't know the answer. But there had to be a way. There was always a way.

Anne Ursu

#52. There is something in the magic we have that is greater than the magic we can do.

Anne Ursu

#53. Oscar did not know what he was supposed to be feeling right now, what all the adults behind him would be expecting him to feel. He did not even know what he was, in fact, feeling. Except, whatever it was, it was a lot. Too much. More than bodies could hold.

Anne Ursu

#54. Nature can destroy us in a blink. We live on only at its pleasure.

Anne Ursu

#55. School was very easy, it turned out, if you just disconnected your heart.

Anne Ursu

#56. It's all going to be okay. She would like to hear that now, even if it was a lie. Because some lies are beautiful. Stories do not tell you that.

Anne Ursu

#57. You can't just kill a swan and wrap yourself in its skin, you know. It takes something from you. In her case it took the thing that she wanted most.

Anne Ursu

#58. The house felt strange. Altered. Like someone had come in during the day and shrunk all the furniture just a tiny bit.

Anne Ursu

#59. That was the point where she was supposed to sound tough, like she was someone to be reckoned with, like she was the sort of person witches should listen to. Was this really her plan? She sounded like a child.

Anne Ursu

#60. He squeezed Steve's shoulder possessively. Oh, Zero. He is not you, I must admit. He does not have your bravery, your nobility, your je ne sais quoi, and all he talks about is this magical place called 'Canada'.

Anne Ursu

#61. They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that's the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king.

Anne Ursu

#62. Kids can handle a lot more than you think they can. It's when they get to be grown up that you have to start worrying.

Anne Ursu

#63. He remembered that part like you'd remember a story someone told to you once, like you might nod in sympathy but it wasn't like it happened to you.

Anne Ursu

#64. Hazel shrugged. She heard Bobby's voice in her head and wondered why it was she who was not allowed to hurt anyone.

Anne Ursu

#65. A boy got a splinter in his eye, and his heart turned cold. Only two people noticed. One was a witch, and she took him for her own. The other was his best friend. And she went after him in ill-considered shoes, brave and completely unprepared.

Anne Ursu

#66. The boys wouldn't come to save him. Only Hazel would. And maybe that's why the boys would win.

Anne Ursu

#67. Her father said she was a princess. He did not see that she was a brave knight.

Anne Ursu

#68. No one else needed to do this. No one else needed lessons on how to be a person.

Anne Ursu

#69. Teachers loved to say people had potential; that's what teachers did to keep themselves from getting canned. What were they supposed to say-I'm sorry, your kid has no promise whatsoever? She's utterly mediocre in every way?

Anne Ursu

#70. Charlotte sighed inwardly. She knew her mother was serious when she started referring to shellfish. What did that mean, anyway? What's so great about the world being your oyster? Does that mean it's really hard to open, and when you do, you have something slimy and gross on the inside?

Anne Ursu

#71. She did not know how to react, for when your heart has been poisoned and someone picks a dandelion for you - because it is bright and yellow and you seem like you could use something like that - all you can do is contemplate the funny ways of weeds.

Anne Ursu

#72. He's gone now. He did something terrible, but ... he did good things, too. And he kept us well. And it's all right if you are sad.

Anne Ursu