Eleanor Estes > Quotes

“After a long, long time she reached an important conclusion. She was never going to stand by and say nothing again.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“Halloween shadows played upon the walls of the houses. In the sky the Halloween moon raced in and out of the clouds. The Halloween wind was blowing, not a blasting of wind but a right-sized swelling, falling, and gushing of wind. It was a lovely and exciting night, exactly the kind of night Halloween should be.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Witch Family

“She was never going to stand by and say nothing again.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“In Boston one day, she had an unusual experience. While Papa and Auntie Hoyt waited out of sight somewhere, she had to go by herself into a large room in a department store and listen to someone dressed like Santa Claus read a Christmas story and "Twas the Night Before Christmas. This seemed odd to her for at Thanksgiving time, she was not ready for Santa Claus. In Cranbury they got through the turkeys and the pumpkins and the Pilgrims before they brought out the Santa Clauses. She was quite relieved when the whole occasion was over.”
― Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye

“Ginger twitched his ears and the loose skin on his back and legs to let Jerry know he was here and he was happy. Then he lowered his head down on his paws again and he let out a deep sigh that sounded almost like a sob, there was in it so much relief and pain and pleasure and remembering.”
― Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye

“This is not the real cave, is it?" asked Rachel.
"Can't be," said Jerry.
"Must be," said Dick. "Sign says so."
What a cave! Iron fencing all around it, a sign saying to keep out, even barbed wire along the top of the fence. They couldn't see the entrance to the cave. They couldn't tell how deep into the earth and rock it went. They couldn't tell whether this cave was like the cave in Tom Sawyer or what it was like...

"In old times, it was better," said Rachel. "They did not have cages around things.”
― Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye

“If she ever heard anybody picking on someone because they were funny looking or because they had strange names, she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she would never make anybody else so unhappy again.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“She had a very sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. True, she had not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean, but she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong. She had thought, supposing she was the one being made fun of. She could put herself in Wanda’s shoes. But she had done just as much as Peggy to make life miserable for Wanda by simply standing by and saying nothing. She had helped to make someone so unhappy that she had had to move away from town.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“Ginger's eyes had always been beautiful, gay, sparkling, laughing, and intelligent. Now they were even more beautiful for there were sadness and pleading, an anxious questioning, in them, too.”
― Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye

“You are a dog. You are a dog,” she repeated.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“More shouts of laughter greeted this, and off the girls ran, laughing and talking and forgetting Wanda and her hundred dresses. Forgetting until tomorrow and the next day and the next, when Peggy, seeing her coming to school, would remember and ask her about the hundred dresses. For now Peggy seemed to think a day was lost if she had not had some fun with Wanda, winning the approving laughter of the girls.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“she crashed to the sidewalk.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“waited for her under the maple trees”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“Petronski”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“That’s too bad,”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“Into the mud puddle!”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“I am sure none of my boys and girls in Room 13 would purposely and deliberately hurt anyone’s feelings because his name happened to be a long, unfamiliar one. I prefer to think that what was said was said in thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way I do, that this is a very unfortunate thing to have happen. Unfortunate and sad, both. And I want you all to think about it.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“The subway, too, was not as she had expected. She had thought a subway would be a shining thing way way down in the middle of the earth. But there, one had merely to go down a flight of stairs and one beheld the subway; and she did not see the escalator that Papa flew up. But in New York Rachel tasted the best meal she ever had in her whole life. She and Mama had walked for miles and miles and hours and hours. They had had nothing to eat because on the train Rachel had eaten up the hard-boiled egg sandwiches that were supposed to be eaten in some quiet park with the squirrels and pigeons.”
― Eleanor Estes, Ginger Pye

“Wha-ja-do? Break your doll?”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“All squashed!”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“All”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“Wanda,”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“Jane”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“Mama could peel apples!”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“she would rap”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“Bright Blue Day   SOMEHOW Maddie could not buckle down to work. She sharpened her pencil,”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“It kept humping up in the middle. Right now it looked more like a giant’s skullcap”
― Eleanor Estes, The Middle Moffat

“Woof-woof!”
― Eleanor Estes, The Moffats: A Humorous Chapter Book About Four Siblings, Mischief, and Fun for Children

“Peggy, to say, “Hey, Peg, let’s stop asking Wanda how many dresses she has.” When she finished her arithmetic, she did start a note to Peggy. Suddenly she paused and shuddered. She pictured herself in the school yard, a new target for Peggy and the girls. Peggy might ask her where she got the dress she had on, and Maddie would have to say that it was one of Peggy’s old ones that Maddie’s mother had tried to disguise with new trimmings so that no one in Room 13 would recognize it. If only Peggy would decide of her own accord to stop having fun with Wanda. Oh, well! Maddie ran her hand through her short blond hair as though to push the uncomfortable thoughts away. What difference did it make? Slowly Maddie tore the note she had started into bits. She was Peggy’s best friend, and Peggy was the best-liked girl in the whole room. Peggy could not possibly do anything that was really wrong, she thought.”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses

“when”
― Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses