Laird Koenig > Quotes

“The night, a living presence, was in constant motion, shifting itself, sighing, breathing. She wondered if perhaps it, too, was trying to get warm.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“Giving and taking comfort in everything they could give and take, every part of them sought to make themselves one till it was impossible for either to know the comforter from the one being comforted.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“One Sunday evening when it was very hot and breathlessly still we sere sitting here in this room in the dusk. He switched on the record player. Liszt. We sat. As I say, here. In this very room. We listened to the piece. Neither of us said a word. That's when he took my hand and we went out into the garden. In a quiet voice he said that I wasn't like any other person in the world and that some people wouldn't understand that. They wouldn't want me to be the way I was. They'd want to change me. They'd try to order me about and make me into the kind of person they wanted me to be. Since I was still a child there would be little I could do except stay alone, stay out of trouble, and make myself very small in the world.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“The game is pretending. It's going through the motions of life. But it's not living.

The game is for people who want rules because they're afraid to believe anything everyone else doesn't already believe. They're all scared to leave the street where they live and do something with their lives. the game is for people who want to be told what to do. Okay. Good for them, if that's what they want.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“What a wonderful day it was to get into the outdoors. The sky above the tree branches was blue, dappled by fast-running clouds shifting the autumn sunlight between sharp spangles of yellow light and an amber haze.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“How did I know how to do that to a body? Is that what you want to know?"
The boy, holding the tea tray, did not reply.
"I told you. It's exactly the same as cooking. I happen to know how to read."
"The library has stuff on things like that?"
The girl picked up the poker and pushed a maple log back into the fire. "The library has everything.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“My father says most people who say they like poetry only pretend to like it.'
'I guess you like it?'
'I love it very much.' Her long hair swirled as she shook her head to correct herself. That's redundant. The word 'love' stands alone. 'Very much' only weakens it. I love words. Most people aren't very careful with them.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“How old do you have to be before people treat you as a person? Cooking’s not like a piece a clever child stands up and recites or a parlor trick one performs for the adults. Of course I can cook.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“How often she was amazed at the lies adults told. Silly, easy-to-expose lies. Did they not remember how difficult it is to deceive a child? Had they forgotten that when it comes to lying children know all there is to know?”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“That’s when he took my hand and we went out into the garden. In a quiet voice he said that I wasn’t like any other person in the world and that some people wouldn’t understand that. They wouldn’t want me to be the way I was. They’d want to change me. They’d try to order me about and make me into the kind of person they wanted me to be. Since I was still a child there would be little I could do except stay alone, stay out of trouble, and make myself very small in the world.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“Emily Dickinson, one could be certain, didn’t have silly friends. She didn’t need them.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“A gentleman," she said with an exaggerated English voice, "does not tell. Ever." "Maybe in England guys don’t. Here guys never shut up about it.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

“My father says that intelligence is the ability to see reality quickly.”
― Laird Koenig, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane