Isobelle Carmody > Quotes

“The deepest wounds aren't the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Alyzon Whitestarr

“Sometimes success demands a certain refined insanity.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Keeping Place

“Maruman does not loll.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Keeping Place

“‎It is better to pursue a hopeless hope than to give in to black despair.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Sending

“That was what happened to laughter when you caged it. It became unbearably sad. It was worse than crying.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“The worst predijudice is unknowing. We think we treat others as equals, but, in our deepest heart, we regard ourselves as superior. In part, this is because we are, in ways, powerful. But that does not make the race of humans (funanga) better than that of the dog or equine.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Farseekers

“Don't you understand that wanting does not belong here, because that is what wounds, and there is never an end to it.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Sometimes I am afraid for people like you who have to know things. Your kind will dig and hunt and worry at it until one day you will find what is hidden, waiting for you.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Obernewtyn

“Never trust a mirror,' his mother had told him. 'They never tell the truth unless you make them.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Life has always been a matter of putting one's feet down carefully”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Farseekers

“Here's the thing. I hate kids. Always have.
I mean, I know the job of the race, biologically speaking, is to achieve immortality through reproduction, but the idea of getting impregnated and blowing up like a balloon as I serve as a carrier and service unit for this other person who will eventually burst out of me in the most terrifying way imaginable, then carry on using me one way or another for the rest of my life, is right up there with throwing myself off the top of a twenty-story building. If I have a biological clock, it is digital and does not tick.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron

“My heart belongs to you,' He promised.
'Would you have loved me when I was a girl?'
'I have always loved you. Even before I met you I loved the idea of you.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Cracks especially. You have to be careful of the cracks.. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know were you will end up.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“If she is afraid of mirrors she is afraid of herself.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Only humans think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exist's only in life. There is much good and evil alloted to each life.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Farseekers

“You are born with the yearning arrow, my Glynna, though you are not yet fully aware of it. It is not a happy thing to possess, for nothing on earth - no goal, no person how ever beloved - will answer it. It points to the sky and to the heavens and the stars and when it cannot reach them, it must fall back to pierce your heart.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Darkfall

“True sorrows do not pass like clouds or inclement weather...Sorrows are absorbed over time, and you reshape yourself around them. How you absorb them makes you what you are for good or ill. I think the only true and right way is to take our sorrows into us bravely and wholly, knowing they will hurt, and accepting that sometimes pain is unavoidable. It is when grief is suppressed or hidden that it does harm”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Red Queen

“She's forgetting,' Ellen said to Jack, plumping herself down on a chair. 'All of her life is leaking out of her. Soon there will be nothing left.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Impatience is not the least of your faults, Malik, it is a kind of greed and someday it may see you undone.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Ashling

“Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock.
'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“What's your name?'
'Names!' she sniffed, rolling her eyes. 'People always want names, don't they? They're mad about naming. I will let the moment name me.' she eyed Jack expectantly.
'You want me to name you?' he asked.
'People from the other side are very dull,' she sighed.
'Give yourself a name for me. I don't need naming for myself, do I?”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Alice's eyes fell to the bundle she carried. But she only said, 'People from the other side of the mirror want to know who and where and why and what is the name. They have to know everything. They are always gnawing at things and at one another.'
'It's good to want to know things,' Jack said defensively.
'It is? What happens when there is no answer?' she sneered. 'Wanting-to-know is always biting at you. Biting and itching. You want to much. Go back to your own world. You don't belong here”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Gathering

“Did you bite someone?' Jack enquired.
'I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realised that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless.”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“The short story form allows evocation, suggestion, implication. Its potency often lies in what it does not say.”
― Isobelle Carmody

“The mirror had broken into millions of pieces and the wind blew them all over the world. If a person got a speck in their eye, the person would only see the ugly side of things from then on, but if a piece got in their blood and it reached their heart, it would freeze into a solid block of ice and they couldn't feel anything anymore”
― Isobelle Carmody, Greylands

“The very shape of our dreams defines us. We learn about the world and try out our thoughts and visions in them. Our dreams goad us and drive us and summon and sustain us and when we are old they comfort us. Magic is a kind of dream, and love is a dream, and hope is a dream. Without our dreams, there is no sweetness, no purpose to life.”
― Isobelle Carmody, The Cat Dreamer Quentaris Chronicles

“If human lives be,
for their very brevity, sweet,
then beast lives are sweeter still...”
― Isobelle Carmody, Night Gate

“It is interesting that the worst retellings of traditional fairy tales are those that heavy-handedly take the step of making a moral point.”
― Isobelle Carmody