Joanne Harris Quotes

I'm not sure I believe in the whole 'ghost-afterlife' thing, but I think places are marked by people who have been there.

And so Nat stood up and joined the group, and followed, and watched, and awaited his chance as the light of Chaos lit the plain and gods and demons marched to war.

Library-denigrators, pay heed:suggesting that the Internet is a viable substitute for libraries is like saying porn could replace your wife.

I speak as I must and cannot be silent.

We came in the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, or promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coat-tails and hats; rushing towards summer in a frenzy of exuberance.

I'm incapable of hiding my feelings when I'm around someone I don't like.

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

I liked her better for showing a little spirit.

Anything that can be dreamed is true.

The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

Change isn't always comfortable, but it is a fact of life.

That wind. I see it's blowing now. Furtive but commanding, it has dictated every move we've ever made. My mother felt it, and so do I - even here, even now - as it sweeps us like leaves into his backseat corner, dancing us to shreds against the stones. V'la l'bon vent, v'a l'joli vent. I though we'd silenced it for good. But the smallest thing can wake the wind@ a word, a sign, even a death. There's no such thing as a trivial thing. Everything costs; it all adds up until finally the balance shifts and we're gone again, back on the road, telling ourselves - well maybe next time

In any case, fire burns; that's its nature, and you can't expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor's house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?" Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. "So what you're saying is . . . I shouldn't play with fire," she said at last. Of course you should," said One-Eye gently. "But don't be surprised if the fire plays back.

Our lives are like these things I make. Turn 'em, build 'em, bake 'em in fire. That's what you've been, son. Baked and fired. But a pot don't have the right to choose whether he be for water, wine, or just left empty. You have, son. You have.

Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.

A man who casts no shadow isn't really a man at all.

I like autumn. The drama of it; the golden lion roaring through the back door of the year, shaking its mane of leaves. A dangerous time; of violent rages and deceptive calm, of fireworks in the pockets and conkers in the fist.

A named thing is a tamed thing.

Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is

Was it my fault that I got out of hand? --Loki

I'm phobic about the idea of being constrained.

To be closed from everything, and yet to feel, to think...This is the truth of hell, stripped of its gaudy medievalisms. This loss of contact.

All those moments, those memories. Everything that we are, compressed in just two or three kilos of paper — the weight of a human heart.

For me, the magic of Hawaii comes from the stillness, the sea, the stars.

Guilleaume left La Praline with a small bag of florentines in his pocket; before he had turned the corner of avenue des Francs Bourgeois I saw him stoop to offer one to the dog. A pat, a bark, a wagging of the short stubby tail. As I said, some people never have to think about giving.

I don't listen to music when I'm writing, but I often do when I'm reworking, editing or when I need to relax.

The past is an obdurate stranger that puts as many marks on us as we attempt to impose on it.

If you want something you can have it, but you have to do some work. It's the ethic my mother brought me up with.

I sell dreams, small comforts, sweet harmless temptations to bring down a multitude of saints crashing among the hazels and nougatines

If you want to know what's important to a culture, learn their language.

A few hundred years ago there were no differences between magic and medicine.

Some things can be both real and imaginary at the same time, . . . some lies can be true, . . . broken faith may be restored.

I have a tendency to pick up my own challenges. The more difficult something it is, the more I want to try it.

Their love was something which coloured the air between them like sunlight.

Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.

You priests. You're all the same. You think fasting helps you think about God, when anyone who can cook would tell you that fasting just makes you think about food.

I'm insatiably curious.

Nat Parson says it's the devil's mark." "Nat Parson's a gobshite." Maddy was torn between a natural feeling of sacrilege and a deep admiration of anyone who dared call a parson 'gobshite.

The dead know everything but they don't give a damn.

The battle of good and evil reduced to a fat woman standing in front of a chocolate shop, saying, Will I? Won’t I? in pitiful indecision.

I don't tend to do category fiction very well. One of my problems when I was starting off was that publishers were hesitant to handle my books because they were never sure what I was going to do next.

But I rather thought--I mean, I heard you'd killed Balder the Fair." "I never did," snapped Loki crossly. "Well, no one ever proved I did. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Besides, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Was it my fault that he wasn't?

She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.

I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I'm going to be immoderate--and volatile--I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.

Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.

Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone...a humble miracle

If you can still write in spite of the fact that you're not getting paid, that nobody cares about what you're writing, that nobody wants to publish it, that everybody is telling you to do something else, and you still want to and you still enjoy it and you can't stop doing it...then you're a writer.

I think if you are an outsider then you are an outsider always.