Top 60 Jeanne Birdsall Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Parents almost always want what’s best for their children. They just don’t always know what that is.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

2. “Maybe it’s fate Hound ate the map. Maybe we’ll discover something wonderful while we’re lost.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

3. “I do, too, understand. Rosalind wants to find creepy ladies for Daddy so we don’t have to worry about stepmothers.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

4. “No, you stupid idiot, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

5. “Not everyone is fodder for books,′ said Rosalind.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

6. “What rhymes with smile?” “Bile, as in Your smile makes me want to throw up.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

7. “People sometimes make unexpected choices when they’re lonely.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

8. “The cuter the boy, the mushier your brain.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

9. “The referee told me this league has never had a brawl of that magnitude,” said Mr. Penderwick after a long, painful silence. “Of course, at the time I was pretending to be a casual passerby and not a father at all.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

10. “I did know a girl in middle school who made hand puppets from her boyfriends’ socks,” said Aunt Claire. “I don’t know if she talked to the puppets, but she did make the puppets talk to her.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

11. “Some secrets buried away in boxes are peacefully forgotten, just as we hope they’ll be. But some refuse to stay in their boxes, popping out at the worst possible times. And then there are those... that linger and fester, gnawing away from the inside out.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

12. “This is what made a book great, she thought, that you could read it over and over and never get tired of it.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

13. “She knew that hearing bad things about yourself is one of the punishments for eavesdropping.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

14. “It was all a cottage is supposed to be, small and snug, with a front porch, pink climbing roses, and lots of trees for shade.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

15. “Skye’s always saying exactly the wrong thing to people-it wasn’t just special for you.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

16. “Penderwick took off his glasses and cleaned them on his sleeve.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

17. “If you want to get out of that crib, stand up and be an American.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

18. “A whole extra bed without a sister to go along with it!”

— Jeanne Birdsall

19. “And depression settled over the kitchen like a wet fog.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

20. “Skye.” “Lima-Oscar-Victor-Echo.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

21. “The sky was a rich cloudless blue, the air still and dry, the maple trees glowing with glorious reds and oranges and yellows, and everywhere on Gardam Street squirrels bustled about with self-importance, burying their nuts in the most unlikely places.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

22. “This set off a series of additional questions from Batty, which Iantha gracefully took on, giving Rosalind the chance to slip away unnoticed. She crossed the street to the Geigers’ house, headed round to the back, and knocked on the kitchen door, just as she’d done a thousand times before.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

23. “Mrs. Tifton had cut off Jane’s ha-ha-ha before it even began. Lydia thought this was probably a good thing.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

24. “Maybe I can drown him in the lily pond.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

25. “Was she in love? Rosalind had asked herself that many times in the last few weeks. Anna’s mother said you’re in love when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. Rosalind felt bad enough for a motorcycle, maybe, but not a truck.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

26. “Will each of my daughters be delivered to me, one at a time, as from the briny deep?”

— Jeanne Birdsall

27. “It’s not right to shoot someone because they’re not intelligent.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

28. “He’ll come,” said Rosalind. “He’s got to.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

29. “The moonlight had turned the gardens into a fairyland, magnificent and mysterious.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

30. “It wasn’t a rock. It was a dog’s rubber bone, left behind months ago to be buried first under autumn leaves, then winter snow. Just an old rubber bone, but Batty was already braced for what she knew would come – the rushing in her ears, the stab in her stomach, and the seeping away of the colors from her world. The soft blue spring sky, the yellow forsythia hedge, even Ben’s bright red hair – all dulled, all gray and wretched.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

31. “Snooty high heels.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

32. “She had to defend the people she loved the best.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

33. “Jane circled the mansion, passing door after door, all too la-di-da for comfort.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

34. “Aunt Claire, may I ask you a question?” “Ask away, young Jedi.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

35. “You have a rare and marvelous gift with words.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

36. “Is this his eye or his tooth?” asked Aunt Claire, waving around another puzzle piece.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

37. “She sat down again. “Oh, Dominic, love has no measure.” “What?” “I mean, yes, please kiss me.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

38. “It was the kind of delicious chilliness, though, that was good for thinking about how winter wasn’t far away, and snow, and Christmas.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

39. “This is truly a sad comedown for a man and a Geiger. Please say you’ll talk some sense into him.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

40. “Woof,” he said sadly. “Poor Hound,” said Batty. “Poor Hound, indeed.” Mr. Penderwick was not sympathetic. “Even he should know not to eat towels.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

41. “So excited her wings were quivering.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

42. “Her father had been forced to cancel her clarinet lessons after the neighbors complained about the practicing.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

43. “It seemed that the closer the girls got to Mrs. Tifton, the louder Skye squished, like a monster jellyfish with feet.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

44. “He was the least scary adult present, besides being English and therefore fascinating.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

45. “Donit kill her now, just when we’ve gone to all that trouble to rescue her,” said Jeffrey.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

46. “Holy bananas, said Skye.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

47. “And then last autumn his heart had stopped working properly. The veterinarian said that they just had to care for him and love him, and Batty had loved him, and loved him, and loved him, but it hadn’t been enough. No one in her family had ever said that Hound’s dying was her fault, but she knew the truth. She hadn’t been able to keep him with her, to stop him from leaving her behind.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

48. “She discussed this with Hound when they were alone, and it bothered him, too.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

49. “That was when he’d smiled, and after all that seriousness, his smile was a revelation, like a rainbow after a storm, like spring after winter, like dawn after the darkest night. She stopped, opened her notebook, and wrote that down. His smile was a revelation, like a rainbow after a storm, like spring after winter, like dawn after the darkest night. She read it out loud as she wrote.”

— Jeanne Birdsall

50. “While in her heart Batty knew that Ginevra was a nice person, she sometimes couldn’t help wondering if nice people could also be show-offs.”

— Jeanne Birdsall