The Daily KidLit Quote

So long, and thanks for all the Quotes!

2010-02-10T01:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a fun experiment, and I would like to thank all the folks who have contributed favorite KidLit quotes. But I haven't acquired enough quotes to keep things rolling here, and don't have time to dig for more myself on a regular basis.

Besides, it has taken me till now to discover I've been re-inventing the wheel. So if you are hooked on a daily quote from KidLit, head on over to:

Children's Book Quote of the Day

and enjoy! I will leave the blog online here for a while so people can find that link.

As for me, I am into high gear with promoting my children's picture book, The Ravens of Farne: A Tale of Saint Cuthbert due out this month.

And I am also very busy with the editing process of my YA historical novel, Bearing the Saint. That one is coming out in July, but meanwhile you can read about All Things Saint Cuthbert at my other blog, HALIWERFOLC. Hope to see you there!

2010-02-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island."

— Walt Disney

2010-02-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

— Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2010-02-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

But if you really looked, Rhan thought. If you looked beyond the powers and the villains and the plots to take over the universe. There was just a guy. Somebody who was alone, who'd been cut off from other people by disaster or birth. There was just a guy who wanted so bad to make things right.

-- Diana Wieler, Ran Van the Defender

2010-02-04T01:36:00.000-08:00

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

Dumbledore, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowlling

2010-02-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

an Anti-Valentine quote:

A.A. Milne - The House at Pooh Corner

"What did you say it was?" he asked.

"Tigger."

"Ah!" said Eeyore.

"He's just come," explained Piglet.

"Ah!" said Eeyore again.

He thought for a long time and then said:

"When is he going?"

contributed by Al Hargreaves

2010-02-02T00:57:00.000-08:00

This is the opening line to Stormbreaker, the first novel in the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz:

"When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news."

I totally agree!-- Sherrie Petersen

2010-02-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

This submission was GREAT, but longish-- almost the whole story-- but I trimmed it to this wonderful concluding verse--Donna Farley)

Here's a quote from a Debi Gliori picture book, she writes and illustrates and is based in Edinburgh - my hero!

"No Matter What" by Debi Gliori

'Small, look at the stars - how they shine and glow, but some of those stars died a long time ago.

still they shine in the evening skies

love, like starlight, never dies.'

Makes me well up, every - single - time. :-)

Katherine Sanders

2010-01-29T02:50:00.000-08:00

My dear young lady," said the Professor, suddenly looking up with a very sharp expression at both of them, "there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying."

"What's that?" said Susan.

"We might all try minding our own business," said he.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I think the Professor's advice can be applied to so many situations these days!

I was quite unhappy when the movie changed this line into Hollywood tripe about behaving like a family. In fact, the kids -were- behaving like a family-- fighting and wrangling together!-- D. Farley

2010-01-28T08:51:00.000-08:00

"If she can't spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell."
-Ramona Quimby in Ramona's World by Beverly Cleary

I've always loved how literal kids can be (and Ramona is always an excellent example of that trait). She is responding to a license plate she sees which is naturally a misspelling of "librarian" because license plates have very limited characters. I am not a perfect speller myself, but I always appreciate good spelling. We all have spell check.

Thanks! Fun blog!
Carin Siegfried

http://carolinebookbinder.blogspot.com/

2010-01-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Hi Donna,

I read about your blog on Verla's Blueboards. Glad to "meet" you there!

I just read "Here Lies the Librarian," by Richard Peck. Peck is amazing at developing strong voice, and this one rings true to the characters and setting:

"Any outrage as big as hiring an librarian was bound to bring everybody out of the woodwork."

Love this book! -- Liana Mahoney

2010-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

I bought a nice edition hardcover 2nd hand last summer to replace my paperback copy which was falling to pieces, having lived in my bookcase continously, when not being actively read, since I bought it new before I left highschool in 1977. In that context, the dedication in the hardcover is its own ultra short (sad) story:

"Dear Sarah: This is a 'special' story - one to keep. Happy Birthday on your 11th, Jan 15th, '96. Much Love Auntie Sheila & Uncle Jim"

--- Alain Hargreaves

2010-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

"Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life." --Katherine Patterson

Found this great quote by Newbery winner Katherine Patterson on a GoodReads quote page

-- Donna Farley, KidLitQuote Blog

2010-01-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

-- Lucy Maude Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables

A much beloved quotation-- because there is no-one who hasn't experienced what Anne has experienced in those days with mistakes in! --Donna Farley

2010-01-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

"It was a dark and stormy night."

I know-- you think this is Bulwer-Lytton-- and it is.

But it's also Madeleine' L'Engle's opening line for her Newbery-winning book A Wrinkle in Time

I remember being sucked into this scene, with a vividly-realized storm around the Murry house and Meg coming down to the kitchen for cocoa. Meeting the fascinating characters....L'Engle deliberately took a famous cliche to open her book, and got away with it. -- Donna Farley

2010-01-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

What a fun blog! Here's one of my favorites:

“It’s VERY provoking,” Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, “to be called an egg – VERY!”

from Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, Chapter VI: Humpty Dumpty

-- Deborah Freedman

2010-01-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Another quote that I love, and which I carry around in my teacher plan book and post in my office at home is from Harry Potter 7 Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling:

Dumbledore: "Of course it is happening in your head, Harry, but why on Earth should that mean it's not real?" Liana Mahoney

2010-01-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

"Oh, doak! Grimhounds! Bad! Eyes of fire and teeth of razor blades!"
"What should I do about them?"
"Not be here?"

--Terry Pratchett, Wee Free Men

Possibly words to live by. :-)-- Colleen Cahill

Call for Love-Themed KidLit Quotes!

2010-01-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this blog....

....well, not really interrupt. A new quote goes up here every week day, but I'm setting this to post on Saturday, as we look ahead to next month!

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the launch of the blog with quotes or with comments. The enthusiasm is very encouraging. So, I've decided to try a THEME for the month of February....and if you'll forgive me for giving in to cliche, the theme will be
LOVE in KIDLIT.

From Robert Munsch's LOVE YOU FOREVER to the TWILIGHT SAGA and everything in between.....KidLit is bound to produce many memorable quotes! So send your favorites. I will post as many as possible on the theme next month.

Meanwhile--- We have quotes scheduled, but need lots more! So please send as many as you wish -- in one e-mail or in separate e-mails-- to kidlitquote {at} gmail dot com

2010-01-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

"Suppose we have only dreamed or made up all those things- trees and grass and sun and moon and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in this case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.
"
-Puddleglum, from The Silver Chair, by CS Lewis.

Submitted by V.Finnigan

2010-01-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

Hi Donna! Here's my quote:

"He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real."

--from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.

An unwitting foreshadowing, while still on Earth, of the crazy things that would soon happen to Haroun.

-- submitted by Alex Riggle

2010-01-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

"Humanity can be roughly divided into three sorts of people‹those who find
comfort in literature, those who find comfort in personal adornment, and
those who find comfort in food."

From "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge

I love this quote because it's so unexpectedly profound.-- Katherine Hyde

2010-01-12T09:35:00.000-08:00

I love this blog! I've been collecting quotations from books for many years, so I'll send them to you bit by bit.

From AA Milne, Winnie the Pooh, end of last chapter:

" 'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,' said Piglet...'what's the first thing you say to yourself?'
'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?'
'I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today ?' said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
'It's the same thing,' he said."

Thoughts about the quotation:

Piglet's phrasing "I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" makes this thought already exciting and anticipatory of Good Things. This stands in complete contrast to the Monday morning feeling of most people--'back to the grind'. It's all about letting ourselves be open to the blessings of the Lord, and allowing Him to allow us to be blessings for other people too. That's the excitement--the synergy that is possible!

--submitted by Laurie Rodger

2010-01-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

"I am not bad, I 'm just drawn that way."
~by character Peter Weir from Runnerland by John Burns

What I like about this line is that it shows the struggle to find identity.-- Ramona Wildeman

2010-01-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

I think this fabulous opening line from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by
C.S. Lewis speaks for itself.

Beware, Donna, you've opened the floodgates--you may be getting a quote a
day from me!

Katherine Hyde
www.kbhyde.com

2010-01-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

Here's my quote.

...and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and I ain't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the reast, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before. - Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Steve Vernon

2010-01-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

My quote: "When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news." -- Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker.

A terrific opening line.

LMC

www.lesliecarmichael.ca

2010-01-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

"I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me." from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

This was my favorite childhood poem. Thanks.

Kathy Stemke

Freelance Writer/Author/Educator

2010-01-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

"Farther up, farther in!"

--Aslan in The Last Battle, by CS Lewis

-- submitted by Bev. Cooke

Upcoming Themes for KidLit Quotes

2009-12-23T18:32:00.000-08:00

The first month this blog is launched (January 2010), you'll be reading miscellaneous quotes, probably mostly posted by me & a number of invited friends to start-- but please do start sending quotes as soon as you want!

Then I hope to do some themes month by month, such as:

February: Love (too obvious? from Love You Forever to Twilight, KidLit should offer plenty of quotes on this topic!)

October: Hallowe'en

December: Christmas & other winter holidays

We may not do a theme every month, just some of them. Other themes could include different genres (mystery, fantasy, historical) or topics. If you have a suggestion, please reply to the comments section of this post!

Sample KidLit Quote Blogpost Format

2009-12-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

"Little girl, little girl, drink some juice

You think too much and your brain's come loose."

--Dennis Lee, from a playground rhyme in Jelly Belly

The part about thinking too much and your brain coming loose was stuck in my head last night as the idea for this blog was gestating.-- Donna Farley