“All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. I devoured those books by C.S. Lewis and William Dunthorn, Ellen Wentworth, Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner. When I could get them from the library, I read them out of order as I found them, and then in order, and then reread them all again, many times over. Because even when I was a child I knew it wasn't simply escape that lay on the far side of the borders of fairyland. Instinctively I knew crossing over would mean more than fleeing the constant terror and shame that was mine at that time of my life. There was a knowledge – an understanding hidden in the marrow of my bones that only I can access ― telling me that by crossing over, I'd be coming home. That's the reason I’ve yearned so desperately to experience the wonder, the mystery, the beauty of that world beyond the World As It Is. It's because I know that somewhere across the border there's a place for me. A place of safety and strength and learning, where I can become who I'm supposed to be. I've tried forever to be that person here, but whatever I manage to accomplish in the World As It Is only seems to be an echo of what I could be in that other place that lies hidden somewhere beyond the borders.”
―
Charles de Lint
“When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back;Three from the circle, three from the track;Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone;Five will return and one go alone.Iron for the birthday; bronze carried long;Wood from the burning; stone out of song;Fire in the candle ring; water from the thaw;Six signs the circle and the grail gone before.Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of goldPlayed to wake the sleepers, oldest of old.Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea.All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence
“On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,Must the youngest open the oldest hillsThrough the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.There fire shall fly from the raven boy,And the silver eyes that see the wind,And the light shall have the harp of gold.By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,Yet singing the golden harp shall guideTo break their sleep and bid them ride.When light from the lost land shall return,Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,And where the midsummer tree grows tallBy Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence
“The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“For remember, that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands-your hands and the hands of all men on this earth. The future can not blame the present, just as the present can not blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world. For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvelous joy. And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better. And the gifts put into some men, that shine as bright as Eirias the sword, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest, in so brave a world.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“Once upon a time... a long time ago... things that happened once perhaps but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added the magic swords and lamps they're all about one thing - the good hero fighting the giant or the witch or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil.” ― Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone
“All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.” ― Susan Cooper
“You remember the fairy tales you were told when you were very small - 'once upon a time...' Why do you think they always began like that?""Because they weren't true," Simon said promptly.Jane said, caught up in the unreality of the high remote place, "Because perhaps they were true once, but nobody could remember when.” ― Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone
“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
“Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We'd consume them like M&M's, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there's almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens....” ― Meg Cabot
“For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“...my father had been born from the minds of writers. I believed the Great Creator had flown these writers on the backs of thunderbirds to the moon and told them to write me a father. Writers like Mary Shelley, who wrote my father to have a gothic understanding of the tenderness of all monsters. It was Agatha Christie who created the mystery within my father and Edgar Allan Poe who gave darkness to him in ways that lifted him to the flight of the raven. William Shakespeare wrote my father a Romeo heart at the same time Susan Fenimore Cooper composed him to have sympathy toward nature and a longing for paradise to be regained. Emily Dickinson shared her poet self so my father would know the most sacred text of mankind is in the way we do and do not rhyme, leaving John Steinbeck to gift my father a compass in his mind so he would always appreciate he was east of Eden and a little south of heaven. Not to be left out, Sophia Alice Callahan made sure there was a part of my father that would always remain a child of the forest, while Louisa May Alcott penned the loyalty and hope within his soul. It was Theodore Dreiser who was left the task of writing my father the destiny of being an American tragedy only after Shirley Jackson prepared my father for the horrors of that very thing.” ― Tiffany McDaniel, Betty
“Clubs rattled behind them. Skeet Cooper rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb and rose from the bench. “Looks like Kenny’s caddy’s here.”Dallie lifted an eyebrow as his son stepped up on the tee carrying Kenny’s bag.Ted smiled. “Sorry I’m late. Mom made me eat breakfast. Then she started fussing with my hair, don’t ask me why.”Dallie took the driver Skeet handed him. “Funny you didn’t mention that you were going to caddy for Kenny today.”“Must have forgot.” Ted smiled and shifted the bag. “I told Skeet.”Dallie shot Skeet an annoyed look that didn’t bother Skeet one bit. Kenny gestured toward the tee. “Be my guest. I believe in showing respect for the elderly and the infirm.” ― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Lady Be Good
“It is a burden...(M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising)” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
“But once in a great while he remembered that he had felt pain, a terrible ache in his heart, and he swore he would never let himself feel love for a human again.” ― Susan Cooper, The Boggart
“Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.” ― Susan Sontag, At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
“When the Dark comes rising six shall turn it back;Three from the circle, three from the track;Wood, bronze, iron; Water, fire, stone;Five will return and one go alone.Iron for the birthday; bronze carried long;Wood from the burning; stone out of song;Fire in the candle ring; water from the thaw;Six signs the circle and the grail gone before.Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of goldPlayed to wake the sleepers, oldest of old.Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea.All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence
“On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,Must the youngest open the oldest hillsThrough the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.There fire shall fly from the raven boy,And the silver eyes that see the wind,And the light shall have the harp of gold.By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,Yet singing the golden harp shall guideTo break their sleep and bid them ride.When light from the lost land shall return,Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,And where the midsummer tree grows tallBy Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising Sequence
“The future cannot blame the present, just as the present cannot blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“For ever and ever, we say when we are young, or in our prayers. Twice, we say it. Old One, do we not? For ever and ever ... so that a thing may be for ever, a life or a love or a quest, and yet begin again, and be for ever just as before. And any ending that may seem to come is not truly an ending, but an illusion. For Time does not die, Time has neither beginning nor end, and so nothing can end or die that has once had a place in Time.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“For remember, that it is altogether your world now. You and all the rest. We have delivered you from evil, but the evil that is inside men is at the last a matter for men to control. The responsibility and the hope and the promise are in your hands-your hands and the hands of all men on this earth. The future can not blame the present, just as the present can not blame the past. The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world. For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy the world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive, in all its beauty and marvelous joy. And the world will still be imperfect, because men are imperfect. Good men will still be killed by bad, or sometimes by other good men, and there will still be pain and disease and famine, anger and hate. But if you work and care and are watchful, as we have tried to be for you, then in the long run the worse will never, ever, triumph over the better. And the gifts put into some men, that shine as bright as Eirias the sword, shall light the dark corners of life for all the rest, in so brave a world.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“Once upon a time... a long time ago... things that happened once perhaps but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added the magic swords and lamps they're all about one thing - the good hero fighting the giant or the witch or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil.” ― Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone
“All life is theatre,' he said. 'We are all actors, you and I, in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves....” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.” ― Susan Cooper
“You remember the fairy tales you were told when you were very small - 'once upon a time...' Why do you think they always began like that?""Because they weren't true," Simon said promptly.Jane said, caught up in the unreality of the high remote place, "Because perhaps they were true once, but nobody could remember when.” ― Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone
“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
“Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We'd consume them like M&M's, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there's almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens....” ― Meg Cabot
“For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.” ― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree
“...my father had been born from the minds of writers. I believed the Great Creator had flown these writers on the backs of thunderbirds to the moon and told them to write me a father. Writers like Mary Shelley, who wrote my father to have a gothic understanding of the tenderness of all monsters. It was Agatha Christie who created the mystery within my father and Edgar Allan Poe who gave darkness to him in ways that lifted him to the flight of the raven. William Shakespeare wrote my father a Romeo heart at the same time Susan Fenimore Cooper composed him to have sympathy toward nature and a longing for paradise to be regained. Emily Dickinson shared her poet self so my father would know the most sacred text of mankind is in the way we do and do not rhyme, leaving John Steinbeck to gift my father a compass in his mind so he would always appreciate he was east of Eden and a little south of heaven. Not to be left out, Sophia Alice Callahan made sure there was a part of my father that would always remain a child of the forest, while Louisa May Alcott penned the loyalty and hope within his soul. It was Theodore Dreiser who was left the task of writing my father the destiny of being an American tragedy only after Shirley Jackson prepared my father for the horrors of that very thing.” ― Tiffany McDaniel, Betty
“Clubs rattled behind them. Skeet Cooper rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb and rose from the bench. “Looks like Kenny’s caddy’s here.”Dallie lifted an eyebrow as his son stepped up on the tee carrying Kenny’s bag.Ted smiled. “Sorry I’m late. Mom made me eat breakfast. Then she started fussing with my hair, don’t ask me why.”Dallie took the driver Skeet handed him. “Funny you didn’t mention that you were going to caddy for Kenny today.”“Must have forgot.” Ted smiled and shifted the bag. “I told Skeet.”Dallie shot Skeet an annoyed look that didn’t bother Skeet one bit. Kenny gestured toward the tee. “Be my guest. I believe in showing respect for the elderly and the infirm.” ― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Lady Be Good
“It is a burden...(M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising)” ― Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising
“But once in a great while he remembered that he had felt pain, a terrible ache in his heart, and he swore he would never let himself feel love for a human again.” ― Susan Cooper, The Boggart
“Part of the puzzle, surely, lies in the disconnect between official rhetoric and lived realities. Americans are constantly extolling “traditions”; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician’s discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as “identities” that fit in the larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.” ― Susan Sontag, At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
