Quotes by Rebecca Stead

Well, its simple to love someone, she said. But its hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

Didnt you ever have a father yourself? You dont want him for a reason. You want him because hes your father. So I figured its because I never had a father that I dont want one now. A person cant miss something she never had.

Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. Its how were used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way. In the way of what? In the way of whats true.

And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love.

Whats the burn scale?

...if you smile for no reason at all you will actually start to feel happy

[she used to say that] each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world – like a bride wears on her wedding day—except this kind of veil is invisible. we walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. the world is kind of blurry. we like it that way. but sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments – like there’s a wind blowing it from our faces – and when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. we see all the beauty and cruelty and sadness and love, but mostly we are happy not to. some people learn to lift the veils themselves. then they don’t have to depend on the wind anymore. ...it’s just her way of saying that most of the time people get distracted by little stuff, and ignore the big stuff.

This is the world of pretend. We are artists and we are servants of the stage, and I take both jobs very seriously. As artists, we work as a collective—all for one and one for all. As servants, we work for thos who venture out alone, otherwise known as performers.

We have lunch at ten-forty-five,” Colin said. A stupidly early lunch. At our school, the older you get, the stupider your lunch period.

Shes called the secretary, but as far as I can tell she basically runs the school.

I think that when you dont know, you should wait until you do.

Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. Its like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten. And the way you usually act, the things you would have normally done, are like these ghosts that everyone can see but pretends not to.

From age nine, my friends and I were on the streets, walking home, going to each others houses, going to the store. I really wanted to write about that: the independence thats a little bit scary but also a really positive thing in a lot of ways.

“Well, its simple to love someone, she said. But its hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”