Zenna Henderson > Quotes

“If God wanted humans to play chess, he would have made us black or white.”
― Zenna Henderson

“In any age when people pervert goodness, love, and obedience and set up a god small enough to fit their shrunken souls...Anything is evil,...It lies on the other side of the line you draw around what you will accept as good. Some people's lines are awfully narrow.”
― Zenna Henderson, The People: No Different Flesh

“The words are the words of English, but the sense is the sense of confusion.”
― Zenna Henderson, Pilgrimage: The Book of the People

“Who is to say which is better--to hunger and be fed, or to be fed so continuously that you never know hunger? Sometimes a little fasting is good for the soul. Think of a cold drink of water after an afternoon in the hayfield.”
― Zenna Henderson, Ingathering: The Complete People Stories

“I knocked quickly, brushing my disordered hair back from my eyes. The door swung open and I was in the shadowy, warm kitchen, almost in Mrs. Klevity’s arms. “Oh!” I backed up, laughing breathlessly. “The wind blew—” “I was afraid you weren’t coming.” She turned away to the stove. “I fixed some hot cocoa.” I sat cuddling the warm cup in my hands, savoring the chocolate sip by sip. She had made it with milk instead of water, and it tasted rich and wonderful. But Mrs. Klevity was sharing my thoughts with the cocoa. In that brief moment when I had been so close to her, I had looked deep into her dim eyes and was feeling a vast astonishment. The dimness was only on top. Underneath—underneath— I took another sip of cocoa. Her eyes—almost I could have walked into them, it seemed like. Slip past the gray film, run down the shiny bright corridor, into the live young sparkle at the far end. I looked deep into my cup of cocoa. Were all grownups like that? If you could get behind their eyes, were they different too? Behind Mom’s eyes, was there a corridor leading back to youth and sparkle?”
― Zenna Henderson, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

“Anna …” I don’t know whether she was even hearing my answers; her voice was almost a chant “… Anna, have you ever been in prison?” “No! Of course not!” I recoiled indignantly. “You have to be awfully bad to be in prison.” “Oh, no. Oh, no!” she sighed. “Not jail, Anna. Prison—prison. The weight of the flesh—bound about—” “Oh,” I said, smoothing my hands across my eyes. She was talking to a something deep in me that never got talked to, that hardly even had words. “Like when the wind blows the clouds across the moon and the grass whispers along the road and all the trees pull like balloons at their trunks and one star comes out and says ‘Come’ and the ground says ‘Stay’ and part of you tries to go and it hurts—” I could feel the slender roundness of my ribs under my pressing hands. “And it hurts—”
― Zenna Henderson, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

“Don't mind her, Old Charlie bellowed. Only thing she thinks is fun is beer.”
― Zenna Henderson, Ingathering: The Complete People Stories

“We all have violences,' I said, tightening my hands, 'but we can't always let them out. Think what a mess things would be if we did.' I smiled wryly into his unresponsive face. 'If we gave into every violent impulse, I'd probably have slapped you with an encyclopedia before now.”
― Zenna Henderson, Ingathering: The Complete People Stories

“She was talking to a something deep in me that never got talked to, that hardly even had words.”
― Zenna Henderson, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

“Finally I shrugged in the dark and wondered what I’d pick for funny when I grew up. All grownups had some kind of funny.”
― Zenna Henderson, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

“For another thing, there’s so much they don’t know. And not knowing things makes them know lots of other things grownups can’t know. That sounds confusing and it is. But look at it this way. Every time you teach a kid something, you teach him a hundred things that are impossible because that one thing is so. By the time we grow up, our world is so hedged around by impossibilities that it’s a wonder we ever try anything new.”
― Zenna Henderson, Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson

“Invocation over, Dita was already in the chair behind the desk, her hands folded primly in front of her. “Valancy,” she said, “we’re all here now. Are you ready?”

“Oh, yes.” Lea could feel Valancy’s answer. “Our Baby’s asleep now.”

The group laughed at the capitals in Valancy’s voice.

“You didn’t invent babies,” Dita laughed.

“Hah!” Jemmy’s voice answered triumphantly. “This one we did!”

Lea looked around the laughing group. “They’re happy!” she thought. “In a world like this they’re happy anyway! What do they have as a touchstone?” She studied the group as Dita began, and under the first flow of Dita’s words she thought, “Maybe this is the answer. Maybe this is the touchstone. When any one of them cries out the others hear—and listen. Not just with their ears but with their hearts. No matter who cries out—someone listens—”
― Zenna Henderson, Ingathering: The Complete People Stories