Kevin Henkes > Quotes

“Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better”
― Kevin Henkes, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse

“(His) sadness grew; it became a rock inside him, pulling him down. He carried the sadness everywhere, morning, noon, and night. It hurt to breathe. ”
― Kevin Henkes, Bird Lake Moon

“As she wove in and out of all the people - rushing, talking, eating, laughing; some in clumps, some alone - she realized that no one, no one at all in the airport, or on the entire planet for that matter, knew her thoughts, knew what she was carrying inside her head and heart. And at that very minute, what was inside her head and heart made her feel as though there was no one else in the whole world she would rather be.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“Now smile a real smile for me so I know you`re not suffering inside.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“Didn't it make sense that after something horrible happens, something better should follow?”
― Kevin Henkes, Bird Lake Moon

“He couldn't help but give in to the occasional temptation to replay past events in his mind, altering them, changing them from cruel to comfortable, from sad to happy, from unfair to accommodating. Anything was possible in his imagination. Any ending. If only thinking it could make it so.”
― Kevin Henkes, Bird Lake Moon

“Because she was looking down and focusing her attention so precisely, Alice lost track of time and of herself. She wouldn't be able to put it into words, except to say she felt removed from the world. Or just at its edge. At the edge of the wild and beautiful world. She felt small, too. But part of something large. She was happy.”
― Kevin Henkes, Junonia

“But this was the first time someone he loved would be gone forever. He didn't like to think about the forever part. But when he did, which was often, the only place he wanted to be was home.”
― Kevin Henkes, Sun & Spoon

“What do you do when you are really, really sad?" When you are full of dread, is what she really meant.
Godbee exhaled through her nose, making a whistling sound. "Hmm. When I`m genuinely suffering I try to think of someone worse off than I am. And then, if it happens to be someone I know and I`m feeling particularly saintly, I try to do something nice for him or her.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“The sky was full - of blue and sun. The ocean reflected it and was flat and glossy like a fancy ballroom floor. To Martha, this was the most beautiful sight, a miracle. The ocean made her feel insignificant and slightly afraid, but in an exhilarating way. Her inclination was not to walk or dance across the water's surface. Nor to swim through it. She wanted to *be* the ocean”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“Home was the same as when Martha had left it, but because *she* had changed, her world seemed slightly different, as though she were seeing everything in sharper focus.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“I am very brave," Sheila Rae said, patting herself on the back.”
― Kevin Henkes

“he could manage. Ms. Silver happened to be walking by”
― Kevin Henkes, The Year of Billy Miller

“The glittery feeling. She’d named it because it felt to her as if her skin and everything beneath it briefly became shiny and jumpy and bubbly, as if glitter materialized inside her, then rose quickly through the layers of tissue that comprised her, momentarily sparkling all over the surface of her skin before dissipating into the air. Martha”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

“You know,” he said, “when you were little and tired like this, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you home like a sack of rice. Sometimes I wish you were still that little. I wish I could still do that.” “Da-ad. That is so embarrassing,” is what she said. But sometimes she wished it, too. Sometimes she wished it with all her heart.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

“Martha had come up with the nickname Godbee by accident when she was younger than Lucy. Dorothy Boyle had been referred to as Grandma Boyle or Grandma B, for short, to distinguish her from Martha’s other grandmother, Anne Hubbard. As a toddler, Martha couldn’t pronounce Grandma B correctly, or had misheard it, and had, for as long as she could remember, called her favorite grandmother Godbee. For some reason, it had caught on. Not only with everyone in Martha’s family, but with some of Godbee’s friends and neighbors, too.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

“Sometimes I think as adults we think of them as — because they're small in size that they're small in all ways — and they're not. They have big feelings, and they have big eyes, they see things, they hear things, they're living life just the way an adult does and I think sometimes as adults we forget that.”
― Kevin Henkes

“Drop Sisters.”
― Kevin Henkes, The Year of Billy Miller

“...but when you see something only once a year it's always new, as if you're seeing it for the first time.”
― Kevin Henkes, Junonia

“lisen”
― Kevin Henkes, The Year of Billy Miller

“She decided that this kind of waiting - waiting for something good and bad tangled together - should be given its own special name.”
― Kevin Henkes, Junonia

“Can your heart swoop?
That's what Billy wondered. In th first minutes on the porch with Papa when everyone was hugging and kissing and talking at once, that's what it felt like - it felt like Billy's heart was swooping inside him.”
― Kevin Henkes, Billy Miller Makes a Wish

“Olive sat right here, thought Martha. Right on this very spot. She got up to leave. She walked over to the garbage. It wasn't really a decision, more an impulse. Among the strained sofa cushions and broken chairs and brittle houseplants and moldy shower curtain, Martha saw a plastic bucket crammed with paintbrushes. She plucked a brush from the middle of the bunch. It was the thinnest one, and longest. It's bristles were stiff and well used.

Instinctively Martha went back to the concrete steps. She knelt down, took a deep breath, and blew at the top step, clearing away the dirt and small debris. Then she opened the little jar of seawater. It smelled fishy. She waited, breathing softly, working at the bristles with her fingers to loosen them. Finally she dipped the brush into the jar of water and wrote Olive's name on the top step. Martha retraced the letters until the jar was empty. She watched intently-the concrete turned dark and then light again as the water evaporated. Olive's name was there one moment, then gone the next, like a flicker in the great scheme of things.

"Good-bye," she whispered.

Martha gently placed the empty jar and the brush into one of the garbage cans as she left.

Good-bye.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“People she loved. Happy people. Lots of people.”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

“Starting is the most difficult part”
― Kevin Henkes, Olive's Ocean

“There was something wonderful - something potent even - about a present before it's unwrapped. Especially an unexpected one. Anything could be inside.”
― Kevin Henkes, Junonia

“Papa?” she repeated. She rolled her eyes dramatically. “That is so babyish, I can hardly believe it.”
― Kevin Henkes, The Year of Billy Miller