Elizabeth Rudnick Quotes

“Olaf was a genius. This, she realized, watching the snowman struggle, was love. Olaf had been willing to put himself in danger because he didn't want to see her get hurt. Love wasn't the canned romantic declarations. That was nothing but fluff. That was what Hans had thrown at her and what she had mistaken for love. Pure, true love was what Olaf was showing her right now - sacrifice.”

“trust me, Anita, if you get dead, especially if he blames himself in any way, he will be a force of destruction looking for a place to be aimed. And he's blamed himself for introducing you to Olaf here from the get-go. If Olaf did to you what he's done to some of his other victims, Edward would drown the world in blood to erase those images.”

“Have been most timid of cowards from day of birth," replied Li Han, without shame, "and this is an inauspicious day."- "No it ain't," said Olaf, "it ban Thursday.”

“I am the scent that he will follow always, hunting for God.”

“That strange blend of the commercial traveller the missionary and the barbarian conqueror which was the American abroad.”

“Even if the powers destroy us," he said, "who are we, to condemn them? As well might a fleeting word judge the speaker that forms it. Perhaps they use us for their own high ends, use our strength and our weakness, our joy and our pain, in some theme inconceivable to us, and excellent." But I protested, "What theme could justify such waste, such futility? And how can we help judging; and how otherwise can we judge than by the light of our own hearts, by which we judge ourselves? It would be base to praise the Star Maker, knowing that he was too insensitive to care about the fate of his worlds." Bvalltu was silent in his mind for a moment. Then he looked up, searching among the smoke-clouds for a daytime star. And then he said to me in his mind, "If he saved all the worlds, but tormented just one man, would you forgive him? Or if he was a little harsh only to one stupid child? What has our pain to do with it, or our failure? Star Maker! It is a good word, though we can have no notion of its meaning. Oh, Star Maker, even if you destroy me, I must praise you. Even if you torture my dearest. Even if you torment and waste all your lovely worlds, the little figments of your imagination, yet I must praise you. For if you do so, it must be right. In me it would be wrong, but in you it must be right.”

“Thus and thus is the world. Seeing the depth, we shall see also the height, and praise both.”

“In this passionately social world, loneliness dogged the spirit. People were constantly “getting together,” but they never really got there…For everyone searched his neighbor’s eyes for the image of himself, and never saw anything else. Or if he did, he was outraged and terrified.”

“Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister.”

“Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn't that be satisfying?”