Ami McKay > Quotes

“No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“Sometimes, for a moment, everything is just as you need it to be. The memories of such moments live in the heart, waiting for the time you need to think of them, if only to remind yourself that for a short while, everything had been fine, and might be so again.”
― Ami McKay, The Virgin Cure

“If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that's as dear to life as breathing.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“She’d always adored autumn storms, from the quiet that came before the rain, when the birds and bugs went silent, to the raucous cracks and grumbles that echoed between the clouds, rife with the possibility of goblins and ghosts.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Close your eyes and get some rest. We gain new worlds when we sleep. —The Grimoire of Eleanor St. Clair”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“How a mother comes to love her child, her caring at all for this thing that's made her heavy, lopsided and slow, this thing that made her wish she were dead ... that's the miracle.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“The time between first and second sleep is neither slumber nor waking. Too much dark and your mind will stay at rest, too much light and your dreams will surely flee. Use this time wisely—for writing spells, summoning spirits, and, most important, remembering your dreams. Queens have been crowned, schemes hatched, fortunes gained, demons defeated, lovers found—all from visions born in the stillness of the night. In dreams, our souls are given the eyes of Fate. Dreams must be encouraged by all possible means. —The Grimoire of Eleanor St. Clair”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“May you rise with the sun, ready to make hay.
May the rains come at night to wash your cares away.
May you sleep with the angels sittin' on your bed.
May you be an hour in Heaven a'fore the Devil knows you're dead.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Fortune favors the prepared mind. Beauty seeks attention. Intelligence commands it.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“People like the feeling they get when they think they've stumbled upon something miraculous. It's a proven fact.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“It’s a disgusting mess we come through to be born, the sticky-wet of blood and afterbirth, mother wailing, child crying … the helpless soft spot at the top of its head pulsing, waiting to be kissed. Our parents and teachers say it’s a miracle, but it’s not. It’s going to happen no matter what, there’s no choice in the matter. To my mind, a miracle is something that could go one way or another. The fact that something happens, when by all rights it shouldn’t, is what makes us take notice, it’s what saints are made of, it takes the breath away. How a mother comes to love her child, her caring at all for this thing that’s made her heavy, lopsided and slow, this thing that made her wish she were dead … that’s the miracle.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“Christmas Day has come and gone, the New Year lies ahead. Strange things happen Between the Years, in the days outside of time. Minutes go wild, hours vanish. Idleness becomes a clever thief, stealing the names of the days of the week, muting the steady tick of watches and clocks. These are the hours when angels, ghosts, demons and meddlers ride howling wind and flickering candlelight, keen to stir unguarded hearts and restless minds.”
― Ami McKay, Half Spent Was the Night

“Of course the act of drinking tea was, in and of itself, quite troublesome, as it had been known to lead to all sorts of sins: idleness, gossip, political activity, subversive thinking.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Miss B. says, "It's a mama's faith what keeps her children right. I'm not talkin' 'bout the churchgoin' kind, neither. Miss Mabel's got faith in goodness. Tell me you can't help but believe in it too just by lookin' at her.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“There's no match for the sweetness independence brings.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Bidden or not, God is here.”
― Ami McKay

“Let that be a lesson to you,” her mother had said, wagging her finger at her daughter. “Those who use magic to find what they seek may not always like what they find.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Sin has many tools, but a lie has a handle to fit them all.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“Mama stared at me not with sadness, but with pleading. She was thinner than I'd ever allowed myself to notice, looking more like a child than a woman. I wanted to believe she knew what was best for me. I wanted to believe she was like every other mother and that she loved me more than I loved her. I hoped, if I followed her wishes, I would finally make her happy.”
― Ami McKay, The Virgin Cure

“If there ever was a place where one could start again, it was Manhattan. Move a block, and your enemies become your friends. Move ten blocks and you might never see anyone you knew again.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that’s as dear to life as breathing.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“Heart throbs- yes, heart throbs of happiness, heart throbs of courage, heart throbs that make us feel better. Those things that appeal to others; that note of inspiration laid aside--bring it forth and let us make a magazine that will speak the language of the heart as well as of the mind.”
― Ami Mckay

“If you want to properly tell a story, you have to be willing to write it a thousand ways.

And then you must be brave enough to share it with others.”
― Ami McKay, Daughter of Family G: A Memoir of Cancer Genes, Love and Fate

“What do you want? Love. Well, love gets what she wants one way or another.”
― Ami Mckay

“Ne laissez aucun mal à s’abattre sur nous. Let no evil befall us.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Aunt Fran lowered her voice. "Her cold is just the start of a greater sickness. These 'stories,' as you call them, will only lead her to more pain."
"Fran, talk plain, will you?"
"I'm talking about derangement."
"Don't be silly!"
She wispered. "And deviant behaviours.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“While it might be fashionable for a lady to attend a publuc lecture on the afterlife, or participate in a seance from time to time, claiming to have seen a ghost yourself does not go down well in polite circles.”
― Ami McKay, The Witches of New York

“Standing in front of the girl's house, Mama yelled up at the windows, "Katie Adams, you whore, give me my husband back!" When Miss Adams' neighbours complained about all the noise Mama was making, my father came down to quiet her. He kissed her until she cried, but didn't come home.”
― Ami McKay, The Virgin Cure

“The house seemed almost without smells at all, pleasant or foul, leaving me to wonder if the upper class existed on a different sort of air from the rest of the world, a breeze piped into their homes from above the clouds, so clean you had to pay for it.”
― Ami McKay, The Virgin Cure

“No matter what you do—somebody, somewheres, knew that you would.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House