Zoë Marriott > Quotes

“People trust their eyes above all else - but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“To ugly ducklings everywhere,
Don't worry about those fluffy yellow morons:
They'll never get to be swans”
― Zoë Marriott, The Swan Kingdom

“I truly believe that if you have more friends than books, you have too many friends. Or not enough books. Probably both.”
― Zoë Marriott

“Better naked and alive than decent and dead, I thought.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“You see, that is why it is so easy to fool people with our illusions, Yue. In this world, illusions are usually much kinder than the truth.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“I would listen to her soft voice and wonder if, somewhere deep inside, she was screaming, too.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“Love comes like storm clouds
Fleeing from the wind, and casts
Shadows on the moon.”
― Zoë Marriott

“Our greatest warriors,' Terayama-san said, 'believe that they are already dead. They live as if their lives are over, and so fighting holds no terror for them.'

A Suda-san looked gravely at him. 'That, Terayama-san, is one of the saddest things I have ever heard.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“I’ve learned a lot about love over these last months. And part of what I’ve learned is that you have to want someone for who they are, not who you want them to be. You have to love a real person, not some dream in your head.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“No one knows me. Not anymore”
― Zoë Marriott

“Aside from wanting to write cracking good books that turn children into lifelong readers, I really want to create stories that enable kids to LOOK at the world around them. To see it for what it is, with wide open, wondering eyes. Our mass media is so horribly skewed. It presents this idea of 'normalcy' which excludes and marginalises so many for an idea of commercial viability which is really nothing but blinkered prejudice. People who are black and Asian and Middle Eastern and Hispanic, people who are gay or transgendered or genderqueer, people who have disabilities, disfigurements or illnesses - all have this vision of a world which does not include them shoved down their throats almost 24-7, and they're told 'No one wants to see stories about people like you. Films and TV shows about people like you won't make money. Stories about straight, white, cisgendered, able-bodied people are universal and everyone likes them. You are small and useless and unattractive and you don't matter.'

My worry is that this warped version of 'normal' eventually forms those very same blinkers on children's eyes, depriving them of their ability to see anyone who isn't the same as them, preventing them from developing the ability to empathise with and appreciate and take joy in the lives and experiences of people who are different from them. If Shadows on the Moon - or anything I write - causes a young person to look at their own life, or the life of another, and think, 'Maybe being different is cool' I will die a happy writer.

-Guest blog - what diversity means to me”
― Zoë Marriott

“I am so angry all the time, and so sad, and it screams inside me and never stops. Cutting is the only thing that eases me.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“On my fourteenth birthday when the sakura was in full bloom, the men came to kill us.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“I know what evil looks like under the surface. No matter how beautiful the exterior, how good the lies, I don’t fool myself, not any more. You carry a terrible burden that no one – not even me – can really understand. But that doesn’t change who you are, Frost. You’re a good person. And I love you.”

“I wish…” My voice cracked. “I wish I could believe in that.”

Luca brushed the dishevelled strands of hair away from my face again and looked into my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep saying it until you do.”
― Zoë Marriott

“I thought then that you were the bravest girl I’d ever met, and nothing that’s happened since has changed my mind.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“Your heart is beating so fast,” he said softly, the words barely more than a whisper. “I can feel your blood humming under my hand. Are you frightened of me?”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“It's as if people -- normal people -- are made of silver. Shiny to start with, but tarnished by time, by ill-treatment. Luca... Luca is gold. Nothing in the world could ever make him shine less brightly.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“All humans are made, in essence, of starstuff, and I sometimes wonder if the starstuff still calls out to us.”
― Zoë Marriott

“Trusting anyone can get you killed.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“I don't want you because I expect you to swoop in and rescue me and make everything all right.I don't want you because you're beautiful. None of that matters. you could never be a bad bargain to me, because...you're you.
And I love you.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“I've been in darkness nearly all my life, and you brought light into my existance for the first time. And maybe that's why I started to... have feeling for you. You seemed like a dream. [...] But that's just infatuation. Hero worship. It's not real. I've learned a lot about love in these last months. Abd part of what I've learned is you have to want someone for who they are, not who you want them to be. You have to love a real person, not some dream in your head. Neither of us could have lived that way.”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“I never knew my mother's name.”
― Zoë Marriott, Daughter of the Flames

“Life is the improbable thing. It is so fragile that it can be taken away at any second, without reason or logic or warning.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“Why does it hurt so much? Why does it have to hurt?”
― Zoë Marriott, FrostFire

“My first memory is of the smell of sunwarmed earth.”
― Zoë Marriott, The Swan Kingdom

“And he will kiss me again, I thought, almost dizzy at the wonder of it. He will kiss me a thousand times more, and in a thousand ways.”
― Zoë Marriott, Barefoot on the Wind

“It may seem strange to you, but there are no such creatures in Athazie. There is an animal-a very large animal-that lives on the plains and is much the same shape. We call it gadahama. The golden hunter. He does not say meep, meep as these tiny ones do. His voice is like this.' He drew in a deep breath, then let out a deafening roar. The cats fled in all directions at once as they scrambled away.”
― Zoë Marriott

“I thought of the words of an old song, a sad song, that I had sung for him once: Oh, my love, I would shatter my own heart a thousand times before I hurt yours. But I had already shattered my own heart, and it had made no difference.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“Real love is hard because it requires one to know and accept another person with all their faults.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon

“When Akira had recited the haiku to me the first time, I had been confused, thinking it compared love to storm clouds because they were capricious and fleeting. Perhaps love was capricious and fleeting, but that was not the true meaning of the poem. The true meaning was this: that love, when it came, was powerful enough to transform everything. Anything. Even the unchanging, ever-changing face of the Moon herself.”
― Zoë Marriott, Shadows on the Moon