Quotes from Ann Rinaldi

Little things about the Pilgrims surprised me. For instance, the fact that the first duel in America was fought at Plymouth by two teenaged boys over a girl. The life the Pilgrims led in Holland before coming to America also surprised me.

Doing good doesn't always make you feel good. I don't care what they tell you in church.

A person doesn't ask permission to fall in love; not even of themselves.

Love is like light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime.

I didn't know how to say goodbye. Words were stupid. They said so little. Yet they opened up holes you could fall into and never climb out of again.

What it love, you ask. Dear child, love is like the light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime. You must experience the first in order to appreciate the second.

Sometimes it take courage to leave.

The most important thing we ever have to learn in life is to live with our choices.

There are depths to the human soul that should not be fathomed.

Let me say the good are often punished unfairly.

Because I had already resolved that if you're afraid of love, your heart will break anyway, only in not half so nice a fashion as it does when you let somebody love you.

I want a place. It has to do with the kind of person I want to be. And how I fit in to everything. I want people to listen when I open my mouth. And know I'm worth listening to." She stared at me. "That's all?" To me it was not all, it was everything.

I've learned that doing what you think is right doesn't always make you feel good. For another, I've learned that sometimes you just have to keep on going when you want to do nothing but drop. And that just doing the everyday things, like keeping a shop running or getting up every morning, will keep the work going until things can straighten out again. And doing those things right every day soon becomes more important than the more pressing issues of the time.

When a woman's face is wrinkled And her hairs are sprinkled, With gray, Lackaday! Aside she's cast, No one respect will pay; Remember, Lasses, remember. And while the sun shines make hay: You must not expect in December, The flowers you gathered in May.

You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.

Are all American girls as daft as you, Rachel?" "I hope so," I said.

Doing good doesn't always make you feel good. I don't care what they tell you in church.

A person has to be strong in life. A person must practice strength, even if they don't feel it.

There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. The slant of the sun looks different and something is in the air--a coolness, a hint of frosty mornings to follow. I woke early on the morning of September 24 and reached for a warmer petticoat.

I will stand by you. You must not be afraid. This is a brave land, Susanna, founded by brave people who never shrank from their duty or their vision of freedom. But this land has a future only if each of us stands up for what is right when it is given us to do so.

I know now why God gave us babies. They require constant attention, of course. They make messes and disturb the peace, but their cuteness and smiles are something the only reminder of God we have in the house.

Because that's how intelligent people conduct themselves. They allow for each other's differences.

He is not a punishing God, Lizzy. That is the mistake most people make, thinking He sits with an account book and a big fist, waiting to punish us. He is not a wrathful God but a loving God who made each of us and loved us since we were in our mother's womb

There are different kinds of love, Sarah. I feel one kind of love for your father. A special kind. Another kind for Warren. And still a different kind for you children.' She smiled at me. 'Heaven rue the day we can't feel love for one another. I wouldn't want to live in such a world, would you?