Jennifer Donnelly

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

“When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.”

“He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.”

“I need a name for this ink ... A name for the feeling you get when you see someone again. After many years. Someone lost to you. Or so you thought. And you remember them a certain way. In yo...”

“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...”

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”

“I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.”

“French Louis Seymour of the West Canada Creek, who knew how to survive all alone in a treacherous wilderness, and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of New York City and Raquette Lake, who was richer...”

“But eating was the last thing on my mind. And I didn't see how Miss Wilcox could eat, or teach, or sleep or ever find any reason to leave this room. Not with all these books in it, just begg...”