Ann Rinaldi > Quotes

“A person doesn't ask permission to fall in love; not even of themselves.”
― Ann Rinaldi

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, In My Father's House

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, A Stitch in Time

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, In My Father's House

“Sometimes it take courage to leave.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Staircase

“The most important thing we ever have to learn in life is to live with our choices.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Amelia's War

“There are depths to the human soul that should not be fathomed.”
― Ann Rinaldi

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums

“Let me say the good are often punished unfairly.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Staircase

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre

“...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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums

“You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Numbering All the Bones

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Or Give Me Death: A Novel of Patrick Henry's Family

“Are all American girls as daft as you, Rachel?"

"I hope so," I said.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre

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

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums

“Doing good doesn't always make you feel good. I don't care what they tell you in church.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Amelia's War

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Letter Writer

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials – Peer Pressure, Accusations, and Life-or-Death Choices

“I find American girls have a spirit and honesty about them that is most refreshing.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums

“Because that’s how intelligent people conduct themselves. They allow for each other’s differences.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Fifth of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre

“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”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Staircase

“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?”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Secret of Sarah Revere: A Revolutionary War Novel for Children (Ages 10-12) About Family Secrets

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, In My Father's House

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, An Acquaintance with Darkness

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, Wolf by the Ears

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials – Peer Pressure, Accusations, and Life-or-Death Choices

“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”
― Ann Rinaldi, A Ride into Morning: The Story of Tempe Wick

“Two women, one nigra and one white, whose voices were part of me, whose hands had comforted, soothed, and taught. One a pine-knot torch and the other a scented beeswax candle against the darkness of my ignorance and fear. Both gone.”
― Ann Rinaldi

“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.”
― Ann Rinaldi, The Letter Writer