Teal > Teal's Quotes

“Don't call me darling. I'm a driving instructor!”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“How can I give you nothing? Do you seriously expect me to buy nothing, wrap up nothing, stick a gift tag on nothing, send a card saying I really hope you like your nothing and lie awake worrying that the nothing I got you was the right color nothing you always anted? Have a heart!”
― Hilary McKay, Caddy Ever After

“He will grow up into one of those people who lean back to smile and jump so easily it looks like slow motion and steer cars with their knees and snitch roses from gardens to give to girls and write with their left hand and own two pairs of jeans and one jacket and fall in love from such a height and so hard and so completely that they never quite recover from the drop.

But at least he will have me to look out for him.”
― Hilary McKay, Forever Rose

“I can only drive slowly."
"That's all right."
"And I can only do left turns."
Rose ran downstairs, grabbed a road atlas, and ran triumphantly back up again. "Wales is left! Look! It's left all the way!”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“He likes driving very fast on the wrong side of the road," said Sarah. "Which I can completely understand.”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“Is this your holiday homework?" asked Sarah. "Don't do it, Rose! And Eve will write you a note to say it's iniquitous to give eight-year-olds homework. You will, won't you, Eve?"
"I could never spell 'iniquitous,' Sarah darling!"
"Hot concrete," said Rose mournfully, prodding her porridge.
"Write this," ordered Saffron. "'The ancient Egyptians are all dead. Their days are very quiet.' Porridge is meant to look like hot concrete. Eat it up.... Read the next question!"...
"What would you say if you bumped into Tutankhamen in the street?"
"'Sorry!'" said Sarah at once. "Put that."
"We have to answer in proper sentences."
"'Sorry, but it was your fault! You were walking sideways!”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“She had to go," said Rose.
"It was because of her angel," said Indigo.
"And because of Granddad," added Caddy.
"And because of her nose stud."
"And because her name isn't on the color chart."
"She's lonely," said Rose. "That's why.”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“Once, when Tom was over here, to tease Rose, I asked him, "Before she was born, can you remember? Were things just the same as they are these days? Did it still rain and get dark and all the stuff it does now? Did the sun go up and down in exactly the same way?"

Yes," Tom said, and then he smiled at Rose and said, "No. Not really. Not exactly the same way.”
― Hilary McKay

“Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
The shed needs new wires now it has blown up.
Caddy is bringing home rock-bottom boyfriends to see if they will do for Mummy. Instead of you.
Love, Rose.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Kiran says (the shelf) is full of stories. If it is, then I like fairy stories. Fairy stories are fair. In them wishes are granted, words are enchanted, the honest and brave make it safely through to the last page and the baddies either have to give up their wickedness for ever and ever, no going back, or get ruthlessly written out of the story, which they hardly ever survive. Also in fairy stories there are hardly any of those half-good half-bad people that crop up so constantly in real life and are so difficult to believe in...”
― Hilary McKay, Forever Rose

“Rose had the sort of eyes that manage perfectly well with things close by, but entirely blur out things far away. Because of this even the brightest stars had only appeared as silvery smudges in the darkness. In all her life, Rose had never properly seen a star.
Tonight there was a sky full.
Rose looked up, and it was like walking into a dark room and someone switching on the universe.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Make a wish," said Indigo.
Rose made a wish and then asked, "Why?"
"That's what I always do. Wish on the moving ones."
"Does it matter how fast they move?"
"I don't think so."
"Can you wish on airplanes, too?"
"Oh, yes.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
So flames went all up the kitchen wall. Saffron called the fire brigade and the police came too to see if it was a trick and the police woman said to Saffron Here You Are Again because of when I got lost having my glasses checked. But I was with Tom whose grandmother is a witch on top of the highest place in town.
Love, Rose.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“On the board was a list of words and phrases which her mother considered not suitable for use in college T-shirt design. She had been asked about them so often that in the end she had started a blacklist of banned words to which everyone could refer. Every time someone thought of a new one, she unflinchingly wrote it down...

Rose read through the list, and turned back to her letter.

These are the words I learned to spell in Mummy's art class today, she wrote, and sighed a little as she began the tedious job of copying from the board.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Fishing in a bucket. The total hopelessness of the activity was very soothing. It was the perfect sport. Without the emotional stresses of success and failure, she was entirely free to enjoy the pleasures of the moment... It was a good hobby, and cheap, and if more people did it more often”
― Hilary McKay, The Exiles

“She'll soon forget."
"Caddy," said Saffron impatiently, "she is headmistress of the private school! She's probably never forgotten anything in her whole life!”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“Humans cannot fly, but they can get the flying feeling. All they need to do is go out at night into a wild storm where the thunder roars like applause and the lightning throws itself in daggers of light at your bare feet and you suddenly find you are not afraid.”
― Hilary McKay, Caddy Ever After

“I used to think that fifteen would be nearly grown up," said her sister Naomi, "until you started being it”
― Hilary McKay, The Exiles in Love

“Oh, Micheal darling!"
"Don't call me darling, I'm a driving instructor!”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“I love people who play guitars on roofs!" said Rose, hopping along the pavement in one of her sudden happy moods. "Don't you?"

"Never knew anyone else who did it!"

"Don't you like Tom?"

"Of course I do. But I don't know about all the other guitar-on-roof players! They might be really awful people, with just that one good thing about them. Playing guitars on roofs... or bagpipes... Or drums... Sarah would like that, and Saffy could have the bagpipes! Caddy could have a harp.... What about Mum?"

"One of those gourds filled with beans!" said Rose at once. "And Daddy could have a grand piano. On a flat roof. With a balcony and pink flowers in pots around the edge! And I'll have a very loud trumpet! What about you?"

"I'll just listen," said Indigo.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
Very good news. Caddy is going to marry Micheal. In case you have forgotten because you have not been home for so long he is the one with the ponytail and the earring that you do not like. And Caddy says she will have a white lace dress and three bridesmaids, Saffron and Sarah and me, and a big party for everyone, all her old boyfriends too. Fireworks. A band. A big tent called a marquee. But where will we put it? Carriages with white horses for us all to go to the church. Afterward Caddy and Micheal will go for a holiday to Australia to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Caddy has it all worked out and Mummy says Yes She Can Of Course You Can Darling Of Course You Must Do That. Saffron said That Will Cost a Few Weeks Housekeeping and Mummy said Yes But We Do Not Need to Worry About That. DADDY WILL PAY.
Love, Rose.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Rose's work of art took her all day, including two playtimes, story time, and most of lunch.
At the end of school it was stolen from her by the wicked teacher who had pretended to be so interested.
"Beautiful- what-is-it?" she asked as she pinned it high on the wall, where Rose could not reach.
"They take your pictures," said Indigo,... when he finally made out what all the roaring and stamping was about. "They do take them.... Why do you want that picture so much?" he asked Rose.
"It was my best ever," said Rose furiously. "I hate school. I hate everyone in it. I will kill them all when I'm big enough."
"You can't just go round killing people," Indigo told her...”
― Hilary McKay, Saffy's Angel

“You can't be disgusting to people just because they annoy you!" she exclaimed very crossly. "Thousands of people annoy me! Millions of people annoy millions of people all the time! . . . You have to put up with them.”
― Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star

“Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. ”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson's Prose and Poetry

“Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“I love you,” I say to him, only it comes out, “Hey.”
“So damn much,” he says back, only it comes out, “Dude.”
He still won’t meet my eyes.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“This is what I want: I want to grab my brother’s hand and run back through time, losing years like coats falling from our shoulders.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“We wish with our hands, that’s what we do as artists.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun