Meg Shaffer > Quotes

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Hate is a knife without a handle. You can't cut something with it without cutting yourself.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“The stories write us, you see. We read something that moves us, touches us, speaks to us and it…it changes us.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“All stories are love stories if you love stories.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“Always be quiet when a heart is breaking.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you or to you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Lost Story

“The fictional characters we love stamp their names on our hearts. They show us how to fight our battles, how to change, how to make it to page three hundred a different person than we were on page one.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“Another thing I learned in therapy?" Angie said. "The kids in dysfunctional families who act out and rebel are the ones who are the healthiest mentally. They're the ones who see that something's wrong. That's why they act out, because they see the house is burning down, and they're screaming for help. That was you.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Sometimes the thing we want most in the world is the thing we're most afraid of. And the thing we're most afraid of is often the thing we most want.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Don’t give up, Lucy. Always remember that the only wishes ever granted are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no one is listening because someone always is. Someone like me. Keep wishing. I’m listening.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“There is nothing braver than a child asking for help.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Ah, but that’s how life is,” Jack said. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say, and they aren’t wrong. We only know the right thing to do after we’ve done the wrong one.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“I can't buy time. No one in the world can buy time. All those wasted years of my life... I can't buy them back. And if there was one thing I would buy if I could, it would be the time I wasted running from what I was afraid of instead of facing it.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“God—or whoever is in charge of this planet—got drunk on the job one day and decided to give me the gift of writing. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can set that gift on a high shelf so it won’t get dinged up and nobody can make fun of me for playing with it.” He smiled until the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep enough to hide state secrets. “Or I can have fun with it and play with the gift I was given until the engine burns out and the wheels come off. I decided to play.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“When you gotta scream, you gotta scream.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“If you were a book, I would read every page of you in one sitting and then when it was over, I’d start back at page one and read you again. If our life together was a story, I’d want it to be a million pages long, a billion pages. I hope there are scenes in the book of our love that burn holes in the paper. I hope the happy chapters are the longest and the saddest chapters are barely a page. And I hope and pray that however our story ends, it ends with us together and the last word of the story of our life is ‘forever.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“If you're afraid to read a book it's probably because you know it has something to say to you that you don't want to hear.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“Always remember, that the only wishes ever granted are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no-one is listening because someone always is. Someone like me. Keep wishing. I'm listening.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Joy is quieter than people think it is. Especially the joy of getting back something you thought was lost forever.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Lost Story

“You kill an artist, you kill all their unmade art too. Why don't people think about that before they hurt each other?”
― Meg Shaffer, The Lost Story

“those who loved books and those who wanted to ban them have one single thing in common—we all believe reading a book can change you. It’s only that the book banners consider this a bug, and Maxine—and likely everyone in this room—sees it as a feature.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough. You have to try to make your own wishes come true.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Time passes like the pages of a favorite story, drawing ever nearer the end whether we like it or not.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“Hate is a knife without a handle. You can’t cut something with it without cutting yourself.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Read me and I’ll show you what passion looks like on paper… Read me and breathe the rusted red air of Mars… Read me and I’ll reveal to you what really happened in that lonely cabin in the dark, dark woods… Read me, for you think you’re too old for unicorns and fairies, but in my pages, you’ll learn you are a mere baby in the eyes of these ancient beings, and don’t you want to feel like a child again? Read me and remember… Read me and forget… Read me and hate… Read me and fall in love… Read me and learn the secrets you’ve been keeping from yourself…”
― Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch

“God—or whoever is in charge of this planet—got drunk on the job one day and decided to give me the gift of writing. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can set that gift on a high shelf so it won’t get dinged up and nobody can make fun of me for playing with it.' He smiled until the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep enough to hide state secrets. 'Or I can have fun with it and play with the gift I was given until the engine burns out and the wheels come off. I decided to play. I suggest you do the same, young man. Go paint or draw or collage or whatever you want to do. Come back when there's smoke coming off the canvas. And for God's sake, go have some fun. Please?”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“But scared is a feeling, not an excuse.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Lost Story

“She kept her voice soft and low and gentle. Kids with hard lives deserved gentle words.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“I've always believed that children should never have to worry about adults, that something's gone very wrong when they do.”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game

“Who knew happiness was the best muse of all?”
― Meg Shaffer, The Wishing Game