Meg McKinlay > Quotes

“The smallest seed of doubt could grow so easily, split a girl open.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“You don't always have to see the stars. Sometimes it's enough to know that they're there.”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“Alive. That was the first thing.
A daughter. That was the second.
They knew this without being told, without searching the newborn's features for some telltale sign. If the child had been a boy, the Mothers would have emerged empty-handed. They would have filed quietly from the house, leaving the family to their disappointment.
A boy was simply another mouth to feed, another body to keep warm during the winter. A boy might wield an axe or trap a bird. He might mend a roof or skin a rabbit.
Such things were useful; there was no denying it. But a daughter? A daughter could do those too, and much more besides.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“They watched as the bird disappeared, until the only sign it had been there at all was the quivering of branches, a handful of leaves falling quietly to the forest floor around them.
There was no need for either to say what they were thinking. They had done a wrong thing, a right thing.
They would tell no one ever.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“People are always asking that about books: What's it about? It sounds like a simple question, but it isn't. You could take all day to answer it if you really wanted to. And if the person asking the question really wanted to hear.”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“It felt like she was unraveling. Things she had thought long forgotten were all of a sudden right there, bright fibers of memory unspooling. And she had seen how this worked, how it began with one frayed corner, a single loose thread. It seemed harmless at first because it was just this small strand, so you tugged it a little, and before long you were pulling and pulling, unstitching the very fabric of things.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“These things could not be undone, but the passage of time had softened the transgressions of the past.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“Stars are already amazing. Science is amazing. Why do people have to try to make it all magical?”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“Nothing bad has ever really happened to her. She doesn't know things can change at any moment, that the bottom can drop out of the world. And that's a good thing. Of course it is. I wish I didn't know that, either.”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“Her heart pounded, a caged thing beating wildly in her chest.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“People are always asking that about books: What’s it about? It sounds like a simple question, but it isn’t. You could take all day to answer it if you really wanted to. And if the person asking the question really wanted to hear it.”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“There were always signs, if you cared to read them.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“The lightest finger-touch, a whisper all its own.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“I had always been the girl who focused quietly on the spine of a leaf while other kids ran around squealing.”
― Meg McKinlay, Below

“All I can think is that I wish people would talk about Dad. I wish it more than anything in the world.”
― Meg McKinlay, Catch a Falling Star

“It was funny when you realized that none of the thoughts running through your head had made it into the outside world, that they were yours and yours alone.”
― Meg McKinlay, Below

“It was possible, after all, to be too close to a thing. By standing in the center of it, to make it invisible.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone

“This was the beginning of panic. She had seen it before - had watched it grow from a moment’s weakness and then spiral on and on, feeding on itself until it was beyond any control.”
― Meg McKinlay, A Single Stone