Marsha Valance

“She was a liminal person, trapped between a world she'd grown out of and another that wouldn't let her in. It was one reason why she wanted to leave the island so badly - the hope that leaving the place she'd grown up would help her leave her childhood behind. Not forever, not yet. But for a visit, to see what it was like.”
― H.G. Parry, The Magician’s Daughter

“This wasn't like the hardship in books. It wasn't just that characters in books weren't real and Anna and the children were - that part of it was obvious and expected. It was that the hardship in books was written. It had purpose. It was part of a story, and however bleak it looked for the people inside the pages, that only meant there were more pages left before the end - unless it was a tragedy, or something Russian. Even then, things would work out the way they ought. It wasn't true here. Pain was simply pain, and there was nothing to do about it except refuse to let it break you.”
― H.G. Parry, The Magician’s Daughter

“The bloody head lifted feebly and one battered eye opened. Frightened, Tony almost took his wagon and ran away. Instead he stayed, for he saw that the animal was trying pitifully to wag his tail.”
― Stephen W. Meader, Bat: The Story of a Bull Terrier

“Peter, leaving the library with a light step, and skipping down the stairs like an elderly Fred Astaire.”
― Jill Paton Walsh, The Late Scholar