Anne Ursu Quotes

They said words they did not mean, and their conversations seemed to follow all kinds of rules—rules that no one has ever explained to Oscar.

Oscar leaned in, eyes wide. 'He's keeping me,' he whispered to the kitten.Pebble chirped. Oscar's eyes flicked to the books underneath his bed. They called out to him: Misfit. Orphan. Idiot.Oscar coughed and shifted his eyes back to Pebble. 'He thinks I can work the shop. ... He said he knew I could do it.'Wolf: He didn't see you work the shop. He doesn't know. Just wait until he hears.'He wants me to do the best I can.'Wolf: If only he knew how bad that was. He'll know soon.Oscar clenched his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut. ... 'I'm not going to disappoint him,' Oscar said. He repeated himself once more, in case the words themselves had any power. 'I'm not.

His words sounded foolish to his own ears. He was not impressive. He was small like the world.

Now, the world is more than it seems to be. You know this, of course, because you read stories. You understand that there is the surface and then there are all the things that glimmer and shift underneath it. And you know that not everyone believes in those things, that there are people—a great many people—who believe the world cannot be any more than what they can see with their eyes. But we know better.