Quotes from Ann Rinaldi

I find American girls have a spirit and honesty about them that is most refreshing.

There are forces in the world that we cannot see, and they are for good as well as for evil. And I sensed, with an inner certainty, that the forces of good were far more powerful than the forces of evil.

Words said can never be recalled. So it is best, oftimes, not to speak too quickly. Yet words left unsaid are worse. We wear them like weights around our hearts.

My heart stopped beating, I know it did. Hearts do that sometimes, for just a beat or two. Then they start up again. But they never regain those missed beats, and nothing is ever the same afterwards. Life proceeds to a different cadence, and never again as harmonious as before

Our enemies make us strong, Miss Muffet, not our friends. Our friends will lie to us, tell us what we need to hear. Forgive us. We must keep a few good enemies on hand, always, to keep us sharp and teach us never to do anything that needs forgiveness.

Her face was a map I'd like to trace. I'd love to see where it would take me. And I'd love to see where she had been.

I do not know what will be the end of it.

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

I think he is just an old man who still believes in his country, his old Germany. we all wanted a new Germany, but not at the cost of this madman, Hitler. Your grandpa can't be blamed for loving his old Germany.

He had to put down the sacks of sugar and coffee then. Because, though he could hold off a mob at the depot with no trouble, even he couldn't kiss a girl with his arms full of contraband.

You don't have to love somebody to miss them. You get used to having them around, like a cat or a bird.

Haven't my past sermons taught you anything? Yes, Emilie threw at him, that you pray for those who are close to God, and those who aren't, who need Him, you toss away like garbage.

I earn my own respect, I told Emilie. I don't ride the coattails of someone else.

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

No one is a virgin, because life has screwed us all.

So we gave the afternoon some sanity after all and I wonder, Uncle Andrew, is life sane, as we tried to make it? Or is it insanity, as it was yesterday on the Gerard plantation? And why don't more people try to make it sane? Or if it is full of sanity for them, why do they try to rip that sanity to pieces and impose their form of insanity? Can you help me understand?

I don't know what this Liberty thing is all about, Rachel. None of us do, yet. I pray that if we ever achieve it, we will know how to control it. And not let it control us.

You know what I think, Sarah? I think that when God made all those animals, He was practicing. He made them all different shapes and sizes, and He just kept on practicing. For when He made man. But He had to practice a lot, first. That's why the animals are all so different-looking. What do you think? 'Sometimes,' Sarah said, 'I think He didn't practice enough.

He looked up at her. Something passed between them. And I saw that he answered to her, too. But that he didn't answer to her authority, like the governor's, or her shrillness, like Aunt Hannah's, but to her gentleness.

And I longed to tell Uncle Lawrence, to show him I knew when to keep quiet. But I'd long since found out that too often we can't say the very thing that will redeem us. And if that isn't being grown-up, I don't know what is.

Food first, then talk. Life looks better on a full stomach. People become civilized when they break bread together. Margaret had taught me that.

I can't do it, Uncle Richard, I said. You can. You have it in you to do it. You're a good person. I'm not. I don't want to be a good person. I started to cry. He held me close then. And what he said surprised me. What makes you think any of us want to be good people, Ebie? You know, I never agreed with these Puritan preachers, who tell us we're all inherently bad. I think we're all inherently good. And we fight against it, all our lives.

When you learn about someone, hear their stories, you tote them around. They flow in your blood and your dreams. They become a part of you.

I lay in bed that March morning, listening to noises from below stairs and priding myself on the fact that I had kept peace in the house since January. If I didn't, we might all kill each other. Not with guns, no. We'd had our fill of guns with the war. But with words, the way civilized people kill each other every day.