Nell Quotes

“They'd fallen into an easy routine, the three of them. Breakfast together in the morning, then Hughie would leave for work and she and Nell would get started in the house. Lil found she liked having a second shadow, enjoyed showing Nell things, explaining how they worked and why. Nell was a big one for asking why-why did the sun hide at night, why didn't the fire flames leap out of the gate, why didn't the river get bored and run the other way?-and Lil loved supplying answers, watching as understanding dawned on Nell's little face. For the first time in her life, Lil felt useful, needed, whole.”

“They'd fallen into an easy routine, the three of them. Breakfast together in the morning, then Hughie would leave for work and she and Nell would get started in the house. Lil found she liked having a second shadow, enjoyed showing Nell things, explaining how they worked and why. Nell was a big one for asking why-why did the sun hide at night, why didn't the fire flames leap out of the gate, why didn't the river get bored and run the other way?-and Lil loved supplying answers, watching as understanding dawned on Nell's little face. For the first time in her life, Lil felt useful, needed, whole.”

“All that evening Nell sat alone in her bedroom trembling with curious satisfaction. For punishment Eva had been sent to her room without supper and Nell sat listening now to the even, steady sobs far off down the hall. It was dark and on the river shore a night bird tried its note cautiously against the silence. Down in the pantry, the dishes done, Suse and Jessie, dark as night itself, drank coffee by the great stove and mumbled over stories of the old times before the War. Nell fetched her smelling salts and sniffed the frosted stopper of the flowered bottle till the trembling stopped. ("Where The Woodbine Twineth")”

“...red sings like summer in the shadows, hot on my tongue...”

“Nell was like a witch. Her long silvery hair rolled into a bun on the back of her head, the narrow wooden house on the hillside in Paddington, with its peeling lemon-yellow paint and overgrown garden, the neighborhood cats that followed her everywhere. The way she had of fixing her eyes so straight on you, as if she might be about to cast a spell.”

“But we have to learn to be free. We have to, Nell. Doesn't mean happy all the time, or okay all the time. It’s okay not to be okay. I told you that, but I'm relearning it myself. But not being okay doesn't mean you stop living.”

“Books are all the dreams we would most like to have and like dreams they have the power to change consciousness. ”

“I admire Eudora Welty. 'Delta Wedding' is a book I've given as a present to numerous women. Eudora Welty rocks. She writes such jewel-like, fine, refined short stories.”

“I saw a cardinal when I was in Brooklyn, and I was almost moved to tears. I was, like, 'I can't believe this thing is legal. I can't believe this thing is in the wild. How did this happen? How has someone not killed them all? They're so conspicuous. They're gorgeous. How can they still be alive?'”

“I think, often, when you are in just a lot of pain, it comes out as anger.”

“I think when you're happy, emotions are right near the top - mine definitely are. I cry easily, I laugh easily, I lose my temper easily... and I beg for forgiveness easily.”