Theresa Breslin Quotes

#1. What makes a human being want to kill another who has done him no personal harm? Patriotism.

Theresa Breslin

#2. In addition to being a writer, I'm a librarian - professionally trained and everything.

Theresa Breslin

#3. Sometimes people do what they think is for the best, and their intentions are misinterpreted.

Theresa Breslin

#4. One of the reasons I began to write was because I wanted stories for my children where the characters spoke as they did and had similar life experiences.

Theresa Breslin

#5. The Maestro spoke again. "When we are not, at what point do we become?"
I could not reply. For I had grasped no shape of his thoughts. I understood neither what he said nor his intent behind it.

Theresa Breslin

#6. I am not a doctor,' I replied, 'I only help those who come to me in desperation. When a man is brought to me naked I do not know his race or allegiance. I will treat the sick, and if you do not allow me to do so, then I will treat no one.

Theresa Breslin

#7. Lying eats into the soul. If it becomes a habit it frays the edge of your spirit. Truth telling, although sometimes harder to do, strengthens your heart. It serves a person ill not to tell the truth.

Theresa Breslin

#8. What I try to do - and I think this is the former librarian in me - is to get primary source material.

Theresa Breslin

#9. Suffering is the common lot of man.

Theresa Breslin

#10. I peered at his writing, but I could make nothing of it.
Then I saw why, and my soul chilled like marble.
His writing was running left to right. Not the words in reverse order, but the letter themselves. All of it. It was mirror writing- to be read by the Devil.

Theresa Breslin

#11. I must tell you this, Maggie. Your letters are my lifeline. Your threat to stop them terrified me. Never stop writing to me, I implore you.

Theresa Breslin

#12. If you are not a Conchie, what are you man?' demanded the Major.
After some moments' thought, Francis said, 'I am a human being who does not believe in killing my fellow man for insufficient reason.

Theresa Breslin

#13. They spoke politely and with deference to the adults, whereas it went against my nature not to speak plainly. To many people speaking plainly is the same as speaking rudely. Whereas to me, if one was direct, it saved time and misunderstanding.

Theresa Breslin

#14. In order to deliver the emotional truth in the story, you have to include some of the literal truth.

Theresa Breslin

#15. This was not completely true. I had run so fast that I still had a stitch in my side, but I did not want to be left out of their confraternity of guilt.

Theresa Breslin

#16. How had it come about that these particular designs were chosen as our letters? Who decreed what sound would accompany each shape? And how was it decided the manner they would come together to form a word?
'Why is this so?' I demanded to know.

Theresa Breslin

#17. Being illegitimate is a technicality. It does not mean that there is anything wrong with you. Men use "bastard" as a curse. But to use the term thus is to show that they themselves are less than a proper human being.

Theresa Breslin