Vicki Joyner

“What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again quite be the same person you were.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light