Zilpha Keatley Snyder > Quotes

“Know all the Questions, but not the Answers
Look for the Different, instead of the Same
Never Walk where there's room for Running
Don't do anything that can't be a Game”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Changeling

“Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm

“There was that special smell made up of paper, ink, and dust; the busy hush; the endless luxury of thousands of unread books. Best of all was the eager itch of anticipation as you went out the door with your arms loaded down with books.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet Room

“Belonging to a place isn't nearly as necessary as belonging to people you love and who love you and need you.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet Room

“Trick-or-treating is for candy and demonstrations are for things like Peace and Freedom. It's different.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game

“We all invite our own devils, and we must exorcise our own.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm

“Belief in mysteries—all manner of mysteries—is the only lasting luxury in life.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm

“The answers aren't important really... What's important is- knowing all the questions.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Changeling

“But now and then, beneath the outer numbness, something stirred, like a living pain waiting for the anesthetic to wear away.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm

“My dear child...fault is an empty word. It is a coin with only one side. It is not a reason or an excuse.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Witches of Worm

“Just looking at the outside of the library made Robin lose herself for a minute, remembering the feel of libraries. There was that special smell made up of paper, ink, and dust; the busy hush; the endless luxury of thousands of unread books. Best of all was the eager itch of anticipation as you went out the door with your arms loaded down with books. Libraries had always seemed almost too good to be true.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet Room

“As time passed and Harry flew and flew and flew, he forgot all about the fog, the city below him, and just about everything. Nothing in the world seemed to matter but wings, and sky, and motion. The free and endless kind of motion that people are always looking for in a hundred different ways.

Flying was the way a swing swoops up; and the glide down a slide. It was the shoot of a sled downhill without the long climb back up. It was the very best throat-tightening thrills of skis, skates, surfboards and trampolines. Diving boards, merry-go-rounds, Ferris wheels, .roller coasters, skate boards and soap-box coasters. It was all of them, one after the other, all at once and a thousand times over.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Black and Blue Magic

“A–Z, and its dusty show windows were crammed with a weird clutter of old and exotic-looking objects—huge bronze”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game

“there were times when the sharp edges of Neric’s convictions were bruising to those who were close to him.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Until the Celebration

“Maybe everybody had wing buds, or at least the possibility of wings, only they just didn’t know it. Maybe people had really been meant to have wings.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Black and Blue Magic

“Something’s going to happen!”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Changeling

“Of a promise,” Raamo said. “I dreamed of a promise that has always been, and always will be.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Below the Root

“JUST AS THEY’D planned, April stopped by the Rosses’ apartment on Thursday afternoon, and the three of them, April and Melanie and Marshall, went on down to pick up Elizabeth. Elizabeth”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Gypsy Game

“Up and up he went, in a wide circle, his heart pounding with a crazy excitement that was more than half fright. The wind was wet against his face and his ears were full of the breathy whirr of feathers. It was a pretty frantic and frightening few minutes until at last he broke out above the fog into the clear open starlit sky.

Coming up so suddenly out of damp gray blindness, Harry was amazed to see how bright it was, and how clearly he could see. As he climbed higher into the starlit brightness the fog became only a rolling gray river beneath him. It poured in through the Golden Gate in great gray billows, spread out over the water of the bay, and spilled up onto the surrounding land. To the south, the tops of some of the tallest buildings looked like the last remains of a sunken city. As Harry turned in his circling flight, he caught a glimpse of the twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, barely showing above the foggy flood. Farther north, small patches of the hills of Marin could be seen through the fog breakers that dashed over their tops and almost seemed to splash down to the bay below.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Black and Blue Magic

“None of my friends know how to play imagining games the way you do," Melanie said. "Some of them can do it a little bit but they mostly don't have any very good ideas. And a lot of them only like ball games or other things that are already made up. But I like imagining games better than anything.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game

“More spooky and supernatural. Even though all the Egyptians were positive that somebody was fooling and had somehow managed to write the answer to Ken's question, there are times when being positive isn't quite enough." - Ken”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game

“The sixth grade began to find out that April had a way of making life interesting. For instance, when she raised her hand in class, her answer wasn't always what the teacher wanted, but it was almost certain to be fascinating. And when it came to guts—whether it was hanging by your heels from the highest bar, or putting a stinkbug on the principal's desk—you could count on April to do it first and best.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder

“Smiling, Hearba offered her palms to the woman in greeting. “I thank you,” she said, when the greeting was completed, “for your kindness in coming to help us find our way about in this huge nid-place on this long day, which has left us quite exhausted. But perhaps you should quickly show us where we are to eat and sleep, as the night rains will soon begin and you will be unable to reach your own nid-place.” “You do not understand,” Ciela said. “My nid-place is here. I am assigned. You will find that with your special duties and responsibilities as the parents of a Chosen, you will have little time for such tasks as nid-weaving and food preparation.” “Valdo?” Hearba said questioningly, clearly asking him to intervene, and Raamo easily pensed her distress at the thought of sharing their nid-place with a stranger. But when Valdo responded by offering his thanks to Ciela, Hearba tried again. “We have always cared for our own—” she was saying when Ciela interrupted. “You have never had the care of so large a nid-place,” Ciela said, “nor the many responsibilities of a Chosen family. I think you will find that you need my help.” “Who is it that sends—” Hearba began haltingly, and then paused, troubled that the stranger might find her thoughtless and ungrateful. “By whom was I assigned?” Ciela asked. “By the Ol-zhaan. There is a helper assigned by the Ol-zhaan to the family of every Chosen, as I have been assigned to you.” Hearba bowed her head to signify her acceptance of the wisdom of the Ol-zhaan, the holy leaders of Green-sky. In the days that followed, Raamo remained with his family in the new nid-place. Just as before, his father and mother went daily to work as harvester and embroiderer, and Pomma returned to her classes at the Garden. But there were many differences. The D’ok family members were now persons of honor, and as such they found many differences in old familiar situations and relationships. People with whom they had long worked and played—friends with whom they had, only a few weeks before, danced and sung in the grund-halls, beloved friends with whom, in their Youth Hall days, they had once daily practiced rituals of close communion, even those with whom, as infants, they had once played Five-Pense—all these now stepped aside to let them pass and even asked them for advice in important matters—as if they had suddenly become authorities on everything from the nesting habits of trencher birds to the best way to cure an infant of fits of tearfulness.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Below the Root

“Forest is and was and will be. Root and roof and all between. Pan-fruit feed me, nid-bough hold me, Peace and Joy be ever green.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Below the Root

“But they're not really paper dolls," Melanie said. "And I don't really play with them, not like moving them around and dressing them up and everything. They're just sort of a record of a game I play. I make up a family and then I find people who look like them in magazines and catalogues, just so I'll remember them better.”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game