David Almond > Quotes

“Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery.”
― David Almond

“I don’t want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I’ll be in the future. I want to be me and nothing but me. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it’s possible to be. I’m growing and I don’t know how to grow. I’m living but I haven’t started living yet. Sometimes I simply disappear from myself. Sometimes it’s like I’m not here in the world at all and I simply don’t exist. Sometimes I can hardly think. My head just drifts, and the visions that come seem so vivid.”
― David Almond, Jackdaw Summer

“What are you?" I whispered.
He shrugged again.
"Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“They say that shoulder blades are where your wings were, when you were an angel," she said. "They say they're where your wings will grow again one day.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“Sometimes we just have to accept there are things we can’t know. Why is your sister ill? Why did my father die?…Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can’t. we have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“There's light and joy, but there's also darkness all around and we can be lost in it.”
― David Almond, Kit's Wilderness

“Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can’t. We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Maybe we're all in somebody's dream. Maybe everything's a dream, and nothing else.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“Everybody's got the seam of goodness in them, Kit," said Grandpa. "Just a matter of whether it can be found and brought out into the light.”
― David Almond, Kit's Wilderness

“Look at all the life in this," she said. "Every pip could become a tree, and every tree could bear another hundred fruits and every fruit could bear another hundred trees. And so on to infinity."
I picked the picks from my tongue with my fingers.
"Just imagine," she said. "If every seed grew, there'd be no room in the world for anything but pomegranate trees.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“I sit in my tree
I sing like the birds
My beak is my pen
My songs are my poems.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“The dead are often known to eat 27 and 53”
― David Almond, Skellig

“We have each other, and our stories twist and mingle like the twisting currents of a river. We hold each other tight as we spin and lurch across our lives. There are moments of great joy and magic. The most astounding things can lie waiting as each day dawns, as each page turns.”
― David Almond

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you to see what you're looking at more clearly. Did you know that?"
I said nothing.
"What colour's a blackbird?" she said.
"Black"
"Typical!”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Can love help a person to get better?’ I asked.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Yes. But sad's alright. Sad's just apart of everything”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“What is is?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true or if it’s a dream.’
‘That’s alright. Truth and Dreams are always getting muddled.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you see what you’re looking at more clearly. Did you know that?”
― David Almond, Skellig

“This is our world. Aye, there's more than enough of darkness in it. But over everything there's all this joy, Kit. There's all this lovely, lovely light.”
― David Almond, Kit's Wilderness

“Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“I said, 'Do you know what shoulder blades are for?'
She giggled.
'Do you not even know that?' she said.
'Do you?'
'It's a proven fact, common knowledge. They're where your wings were, and where they'll grow again.”
― David Almond

“When you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?"
"No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.”
― David Almond

“Sometimes children must be left alone to be still and silent, and to do.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“We stand dead still and we listen to the night. The city drones. An owl hoots and a cat howls and a dog barks and a siren wails.
We let the stars shine into us.”
― David Almond, My Name Is Mina

“Truth and dreams are always getting muddled. --Mina”
― David Almond, Skellig