Eva Ibbotson > Quotes

“It's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get in a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them. ”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Secret of Platform 13

“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“And so they played some of the world's loveliest piano music - the exiled homesick girl, the humiliated, tired old man. Not properly. Better than that.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just so often that they were dead, and in a book.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Company of Swans

“When you're sad, my Little Star, go out of doors. It's always better underneath the open sky.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“She was so intelligent that she could think herself into beauty. Intelligence...they don't talk about it much, the poets, but when a woman is intelligent and passionate and good...”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Company of Swans

“She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose]....”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Shadows are cool and peaceful places for those whose minds are overstocked with treasure.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Dragonfly Pool

“I want to live like music sounds."- Ruth”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Morning Gift

“But she had to know words. She had to know everything.”
― Eva Ibbotson

“How dare you suppose that I don't know who you are or what you are? That I don't understand what I see? Do you take me for some kind of besotted schoolboy? It is unspeakable! You could weigh as much as a hippopotamus and shave your head and wear a wig and it wouldn't make a difference to me. I never said you were beautiful. I never thought it. I said that you were you.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, 'Was it books in the trunk?'
'It was books, admitted Miss Minton.
And Maia said, 'Good.”
― Eva Ibbotson, Journey to the River Sea

“Not a frog, I hope?” he asked…She shook her head. “No. And if it was I wouldn’t kiss it, I promise you. I might kiss a prince if I could be sure he’d turn into a frog, but not the other way around.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Song for Summer

“He then kissed her.

It was a very long time before he let her go. When he did, she looked up at him, hurt and bewilderment on her face.

“Why did you stop?” asked Tessa.

“I thought you might want to breathe,” said Guy carefully.

“Breathe?” said Tessa, shocked. “I don’t need to breathe when I’m with you.”
― Eva Ibbotson

“The news should have terrified her, but it was difficult to be frightened of anything when she was sitting so close to Rom. 'I thought we had convinced him that I was leading a blameless life?' 'We had, till you burst out of that damnable cake.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Company of Swans

“For an instant she felt his touch on her cheek then he stepped back. There that was my ration for all eternity. People have died for less I dare say.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“This is worse than Hollywood, he thought. A girl comes in with a pork chop and I write a song for her.”
― Eva Ibbotson

“One must not judge other cultures by the standars of one's one,' said Aunt Hilda”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Morning Gift

“Well, dear, it's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get into a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them.”
― Eva Ibbotson

“one of the sisters started shaving her legs and marrying tax inspectors, so she was no good.”
― Eva Ibbotson, Island of the Aunts

“I must go-- the aunts will be worried. Guy, I don't know if we will meet again, but--" Her voice broke and she tried again. "Sometimes, when you're alone and you look up at--" Once more, she had to stop. Then she managed, "If I cannot be anything else... could I be your Star Sister? Could I at least be that?"

Guy dug his nails into his palms. Everything in him rose in protest at the fey, romantic conceit. He did not want her in the heavens, linked to him by some celestial whimsy, but here and now in the flesh and after the death of the flesh, her hand in his as they rose from graves like these when the last trump sounded.

"Yes," he managed to say. "You can be my Star Sister. You can at least be that.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Reluctant Heiress

“Just because we've never done it doesn't mean we can't do it.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Dragonfly Pool

“Pauline kept a scrapbook into which she pasted important articles that she had cut out of the newspapers. These were about the courageous deeds that had been done by people even if they only had one leg or couldn't see or had been dropped on their heads when they were babies.
'It's to make me brave,' she'd explained to Annika.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Star of Kazan

“What are you afraid of then?
Not Being able to see, I think not seeing because your obsessed by something that blots out the world.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Song for Summer

“Please, God,' Ruth would pray, 'don't let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.'

She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler's bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Morning Gift

“To show too much joy in a place such as this would be unseemly but, as he padded toward her, his tail was extended in a manner which would make wagging possible should all go as expected.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“She took a deep breath, inhaling the night air scented with hay, honeysuckle and the rich waters of the lake, listened to the music and laughter coming from the theatre, tilted her head to the the stars. She had never seen them so brilliant and clear. Cassiopeia, Orion, the great girdle of the Milky Way-and her own birth sign, Gemini. With such staggering beauty in the world, how could anyone not rejoice?

It seemed however, that 'anyone' could. For at once came the age-old cry of lovers since time began. 'What are the stars if i am not gazing at them with him? What is beauty except something we share?”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Reluctant Heiress

“She stood looking carefully at the labeled portraits Ursala had put up: Little Crow, Chief of the Santees, Geronimo, last of the Apaches, and Ursala's favorite, Big Foot, dying in the snow at Wounded Knee.
"Isn't that where the massacre was?" asked Ellen.
"Yes. I'm going to go there when I'm grown up. To Wounded Knee."
"That seems sensible," said Ellen.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Song for Summer

“I would let her...have adventures. I would let her...choose her path. It would be hard...it was hard...but I would do it. Oh, not completely, of course. Some things have to go on. Cleaning one's teeth, arithmetic. But Maia fell in love with the Amazon. It happens. THe place was for her - and the people. Of course there was some danger, but there is danger everywhere. Two years ago, in this school, there was an outbreak of typhus, and three girls died. CHildren are knocked down and killed by horses every week, here in these streets--" She broke off, gathering her thoughts. "When she was traveling and exploring...and finding her songs, Maia wasn't just happy, she was...herself. I think something broke in Maia when her parents died, and out there it healed. Perhaps I'm mad--and the professor too-- but I think children must lead big lives...if it is in them to do so.”
― Eva Ibbotson, Journey to the River Sea