Top 300 Maureen Johnson Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “Back in Pittsburgh, if someone had infiltrated the library with fifty squirrels, that person would have been hailed as a hero. But Ellingham was full of library lovers, and there was the feeling in the air that this was, perhaps, a bridge too far. You could be naked, you could scream and hang out on the roof, but you do not mess with the place with the books.”

— Maureen Johnson

202. “Let it snow and snow and bury me. Very funny, Life.”

— Maureen Johnson

203. “Three: Izzy made it sound like Stevie was Wikipedia Holmes, a walking, talking, deducing database that ate true crime and spat out justice.”

— Maureen Johnson

204. “English rain feels obligatory, like paperwork. It dampens already damn days and slicks the stones.”

— Maureen Johnson

205. “No one fixes the world alone.”

— Maureen Johnson

206. “But... he had had a long night, and it seemed a waste to force my story on him when he was half asleep.”

— Maureen Johnson

207. “We kind of wanted the going-out, shopping, prom-going type, and we got this weird, creepy one, and we love it but what is it talking about, ever? Sometimes Stevie felt bad for her parents. Their idea of what constituted interesting was so limited. They were never going to have as much fun as she did.”

— Maureen Johnson

208. “The regret and humiliation hurt much more than the cold.”

— Maureen Johnson

209. “Rise and shine, porcupines!”

— Maureen Johnson

210. “His face shining with the kind of radiance usually associated with religious epiphany.”

— Maureen Johnson

211. “Paris seemed to make good on the promise it made in every photograph of it she’d ever seen.”

— Maureen Johnson

212. “But there was some life in the thing.”

— Maureen Johnson

213. “David had, in fact, done the Sherlock thing that Stevie had dismissed for herself, specifically, the BBC one.”

— Maureen Johnson

214. “Where does this arrogant fantasy come from?”

— Maureen Johnson

215. “I had no idea why I was saying this. It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weaknesses.”

— Maureen Johnson

216. “I just think you get me,” she said. “I do,” he said, shrugging. “We have a limited emotional vocabulary. We’re indoor kids.”

— Maureen Johnson

217. “Nothing is longer than a little while.”

— Maureen Johnson

218. “Office of Confusion and Panic.”

— Maureen Johnson

219. “Some people believe that they are guided by forces, that the universe cuts paths for them through the dense forest of life, showing them where to go.”

— Maureen Johnson

220. “Yeah,” Nate said. “I guess it would be like that if I could go somewhere in a book. I always wanted stories to be real, so I started writing my own. That seemed to make it more real.”

— Maureen Johnson

221. “Sometimes, you have to wait a little bit for this kind of gratification, but it’s still worth it.”

— Maureen Johnson

222. “It was a deathtrap, a meandering thread of madness. It suggested that there was something about English people that she may never understand.”

— Maureen Johnson

223. “The words seemed to come from a place deep inside me, far beyond the place where I stored them, past the ideas.”

— Maureen Johnson

224. “I could pretend, at least, and if I pretended long enough, maybe I could make it into a reality.”

— Maureen Johnson

225. “Noah was many things, but funny was not one of them.”

— Maureen Johnson

226. “Before the Smorgasbord, Noah Price was just a star in my sky... constant, familiar, bright and far above me.”

— Maureen Johnson

227. “My entrance brought a little light to his eyes.”

— Maureen Johnson

228. “Endless white ground below, and swirling flakes, and a lonely whistle of wind, and the shadow of houses.”

— Maureen Johnson

229. “Two students had approached Leonard while he was staring at the painting, a boy and a girl. The boy was beautiful – his hair genuinely golden, a color poets wrote about but rarely saw. The girl had a smile like a dangerous question. The first thing that struck Leo was how alive they looked. In contrast to the surroundings, they were bright and flushed.”

— Maureen Johnson

230. “He was usually her companion in avoiding things, but tonight he was letting her down. His fingers hadn’t stopped moving all night.”

— Maureen Johnson

231. “The full truth was a little too much to throw at a stranger.”

— Maureen Johnson

232. “No one gets Paris after one visit. No one.”

— Maureen Johnson

233. “They’re English,” David said, sitting on the bed. “That keep calm and carry on thing is real. You know. Don’t talk about stuff that’s bad. Talk about tennis! That’s how they are.”

— Maureen Johnson

234. “The surefire way to get someone to tell you something you want to know isn’t to ask them about it. What you do is start telling the story yourself, say what you think happened, and say it wrong. People may not want to discuss things, but they will correct you, every time.”

— Maureen Johnson

235. “Things around here have deviated from the usual.”

— Maureen Johnson

236. “I had always assumed the weekend was a holy tradition, respected by good people everywhere. Not so at Wexford.”

— Maureen Johnson

237. “Stevie had no fears of the dead. The living, however, sometimes gave her the creeps.”

— Maureen Johnson

238. “The more I looked, the more Christmasy it got.”

— Maureen Johnson

239. “Is there kissing?” she asked. “I hate you.” “You can’t write anything?” “Let’s just say that I needed to have Moonbeam fight something and the only thing I could come up with was called the Pulsating Norb. It’s like a wall that jiggles.”

— Maureen Johnson

240. “To her, majoring in painting was an act of insanity akin to majoring in photocopying or reheating leftovers.”

— Maureen Johnson

241. “I wish I’d remembered not to use it around other people, because it was kind of our word.”

— Maureen Johnson

242. “Stevie was not one of those people who thought fate decided for her. Fate was making choices. Fate was at least trying.”

— Maureen Johnson

243. “It is so cold. So cold that the Department of Temperature Acknowledgment and Regulation in your brain gets the readings and says, “I can’t deal with this. I’m out of here.”

— Maureen Johnson

244. “Sometimes anxiety did that – it could slow you down or speed you up.”

— Maureen Johnson

245. “Stevie packed like someone who just heard that reports of the monster were true, and it was headed toward the city.”

— Maureen Johnson

246. “Some guys surprise you like that.”

— Maureen Johnson

247. “One of the things that made Nate and Stevie such good friends was their mutual hatred of sharing emotional things. Somehow, they managed to have a deeper bond by staying on the surface – as if they were snorkeling their feelings, floating along side by side, observing all of nature’s wonders without getting close enough to be stung by something under a rock.”

— Maureen Johnson

248. “God,” I said. “Why are all guys so easy like that?”

— Maureen Johnson

249. “Nate would tolerate most things for about an hour if he knew there was the promise of a snack and the chance to be left alone in the near future.”

— Maureen Johnson

250. “Hello, Alice,” Stevie said. “It’d okay. It’s over.”

— Maureen Johnson