Top 50 Jeanne DuPrau Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The main thing to do is pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you’ll know what no one else knows, and that’s always useful.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

2. “There is so much darkness in Ember, Lina. It’s not just outside, it’s inside us, too. Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier it gets.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

3. “What you need to learn, children, is the difference between right and wrong in every area of life. And once you learn the difference, you must always choose the right.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

4. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., “Strength to Love,” 1963.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

5. “The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself anymore. Anger is. And when anger is the boss, you get unintended consequences.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

6. “Remember the city, the city remember Where treasure is hidden under the ground The city, the city, always remember That’s where the treasure will be found.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

7. “She realized all at once that Doon, thin, dark eyed Doon, with his troublesome temper and his terrible brown jacket, and his good heart – – was the person she knew better than anyone now. He was her best friend. – City of Ember –.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

8. “A person who thought he knew everything simply didn’t understand how much there was to know.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

9. “He says I’m beautiful as a red tomato.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

10. “Wouldn’t it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful – a blue sky.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

11. “What could be more interesting than thinking of mysterious happenings, finding the answers to intriguing questions, and making up new worlds?”

— Jeanne DuPrau

12. “It would be something that another person had written down without understanding its significance; just a sentence or two that would be like a flash of light.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

13. “Lina loved her little sister so much that it was like an ache under her ribs.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

14. “I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything, and that what control we can exert is not over the events that befall us but how we address ourselves to them.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

15. “What was the power that turned the worm into a moth? It was greater than any power the Builders had had, he was sure of that. The power that ran the city of Ember was feeble by comparison...”

— Jeanne DuPrau

16. “People didn’t make life, so they can’t destroy it. Even if we were to wipe out every bit of life in the world, we can’t touch the place life comes from. Whatever made the plants and animals and people spring up in the first place will always be there, and life will spring up again.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

17. “The idea seemed to be that if you prayed extremely hard – especially if a lot of people prayed at once – maybe God would change things. The trouble was, what if your enemy was praying, too? Which prayer would God listen to?”

— Jeanne DuPrau

18. “It wasn’t because they had extraordinary powers, really, but because of how well they used the ordinary powers everyone had: the power of courage, the power of kindness, the powers of curiosity and knowledge.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

19. “Why, if its going to be allright, do we see it getting worse every day?”

— Jeanne DuPrau

20. “The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself anymore. Anger is.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

21. “Doon was touched. Kenny looked like a tiny little wisp, but there was something strong inside him. – People of Sparks –.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

22. “The day had a strange but comforting feel to it, like a rest between the end of one time and the beginning of another.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

23. “Unintended consequences, he thought miserably. He was angry at his anger, the way it surged up and took over.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

24. “Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier it gets.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

25. “People find a way through just about anything.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

26. “Mrs. Murdo, walkind even more briskly to keep her spirits up, was crossing Harken Square when something fell to the pavement just in front of her with a terrific thump. How extraordinary, she thought, bending to pick it up. It was sort of a bundle. She began to untie it.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

27. “You know, son, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an easy life. There’s always going to be hard work and there will always be misfortunes we can’t control, lurking out at the edges – storms, sickness, wolves. But there is such a thing as a good life and I think that we have one here.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

28. “In the second row was a boy named Doon Harrow. He sat with his shoulders hunched, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration, and his hands clasped tightly together. His hair looked rumpled, as if he hadn’t combed it for a while. He had dark, thick eyebrows, which made him look serious at the best of times and, when he was anxious or angry, came together to form a straight line across his forehead. His brown corduroy jacket was so old that its ridges had flattened out.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

29. “It’s for my God, the god of dogs, and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and makes everything marvelous.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

30. “Full to the brim with hope and love and joy, she watched the little light bulb shining like a promise in the night.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

31. “Now Doon seemed to care for his new friends more than he did for her. Every time she thought about him she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

32. “She started back down the trail. If no dogs find the food, she thought, maybe squirrels will. Or that white bear. Or if no one finds it, then it can all be for God. Only not for the Prophet’s God, her mean, picky God who dislikes so many things. It’s for my God, the god of dogs and snakes and dust mites and albino bears and Siamese twins, the god of stars and starships and other dimensions, the god who loves everyone and who makes everything marvelous.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

33. “Resentment increased on both sides, until any little accident could flare up into a fight.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

34. “People in Ember rarely threw anything away. They made the best possible use of what they had.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

35. “The people of Ember were just as grubby as the people of Sparks; everyone looked more or less the same.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

36. “A darkness different from Ember’s, but just as frightening...”

— Jeanne DuPrau

37. “Love is love, seems to me. As long as what you love isn’t armed robbery, or bombing airplanes, or kidnapping little children.” -Crystal.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

38. “Poppy was now almost well. She still slept more than usual, but when she wasn’t sleeping she tromped around the doctor’s house pulling spoons off the table and spilling cups of water and crumpling pages of books. That is, she was almost her old self.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

39. “All these words, written so long ago, seemed to say to her, Remember us. We were here. We were real.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

40. “Why did people always blame kids for things like this? As far as Grover could tell, grown-ups caused a lot more trouble in the world than kids.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

41. “But that was what made things so exciting – nothing was ever how you expected it to be.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

42. “What you get is what you get. What you DO with what you get, though... that’s more the point, wouldn’t you say” -Doon’s Father.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

43. “His vision of the future, already shadowed by anxiety, had just grown several shades darker.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

44. “You should THINK about what’s the right thing to do. Not just take someone’s word for it” -Grover.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

45. “Lina laughed. So did Doon. A look went between them, like a quick current of electricity.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

46. “Tick wanted power. He wanted glory. He wanted war, with himself in command. He had raised his army.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

47. “She loved to run. She could run forever. And she loved exploring every nook and cranny of the city, which was what a messenger got to do.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

48. “She flicked off the TV.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

49. “Goats and oxen, pulling carts in from the field, left their big, smelly plops all over. these got cleaned up eventually-someone came and scraped them into buckets and took them away-but often this didn’t happen until halfway through the morning, and people had to step carefully until then and breathe in that powerful smell.”

— Jeanne DuPrau

50. “When anger is in control, you get unintended consequences.”

— Jeanne DuPrau