The People Of Sparks Quotes
"We come from the city of Ember. We left there because our city was dying. We need help."
"The city of Ember? Where's that? We've never heard of it."
"It isn't a lie. Really. Our city was underground. We didn't know it until we came out."
"Tell us the truth," said Ben, "not childish nonsense."
"They're as in charge as anyone. The mayor of our city is no longer with us."
"We're hungry," the boy said. "And thirsty. Will you help us?"
"People from Ember! Welcome! We will do what we can to help you."
"The lights kept flickering on and off. It seemed to me there was no time to lose."
"Everything happened at once. Two of the guards looked up at us and lost their balance and fell into the water."
"It was awful. People were in too much of a hurry even to ask questions."
"Are they people like us, Mama? Or some other kind?"
"Of course we're like you. Aren't we? Are there more kinds of people than one?"
"The fire stays in the fireplace. Not at all dangerous."
"We won't need one. Nights will be getting warmer soon."
"Everything here was the opposite of Ember. Ember was dark and cold; this place was bright and hot. Ember was orderly; this place was disorderly. In Ember, everything was familiar to her. Here everything was strange. Will I learn to like it here? she wondered. Will I ever feel at home?"
"What I fail to understand," said Ben, "is why this particular misfortune has happened to us... I don’t see that we deserve it, having labored as diligently as we have."
"So what do we do if they can't stay and they can't go? What is the right thing to do?"
"With this in mind, the three leaders voted: Mary voted yes, the cave people should stay. Ben voted yes, reluctantly. Wilmer voted yes."
"We don't have war anymore," he said. "Our leaders say we must never have war again. And besides, there's no one to fight against. But if we ever do have to have one, we'll win, because we have the Terrible Weapon."
"All the people of Ember came from this world."
"I suppose you lived in—what? Some sort of burrows?"
"They make it cool in hot weather and warm in cold."
"The sun was setting; the western sky glowed pink."
"This is a very fine place you’ve brought us to."
"The feeling of being a new person in this new world stayed with him."
"Work was making him sturdy and ready for anything."
"It's strange, isn't it? Why have all these different kinds, I wonder? Just for the fun of it?"
"We just need to get ourselves a little more comfortable."
"We have noticed that the food parcels you so generously give us have become considerably smaller lately."
"They’re tired of helping us, he thought. What are we going to do?"
"Out of habit, she drew the city she had always drawn."
"Something in her was a little bit magic, maybe—she could see beyond what was right in front of her eyes to things that used to be, or things that could be in the future."
"This stuff is precious. You do not throw it in the river!"
"The most helpful thing you people could do would be to ... well, never mind."
"People from Ember were frightened by chickens, had never seen a cloud, and didn't know the meaning of ordinary words like storm and forest and cat and lemon."
"They cleaned every last crumb off their plates, asked for seconds, finished those off, and then sat there looking hungry."
"This place wasn't so perfect, she wanted to tell those crabby villagers."
"This world was huge. There must be another place in it for the people of Ember."
"He’d become a sort of leader around the Pioneer Hotel, just by the force of his personality."
"Tick had far more energy than most people, and far more ideas, even though they weren’t all good ones."
"It’s hard enough to feed your own family, much less a bunch of strangers."
"They were talking about the city! Lina sat very still and listened harder."
"Anything truly important involved risks, didn’t it?"
"He would shoot one at Lina! Pow! It would sail halfway to the city and drop right on Caspar’s truck and blow them all up!"
"No one knew he had done it, would they? No one had seen him."
"There’s no need to worry. I’ll have her come and find you as soon as she returns."
"Lina was always eager to investigate new places."
"As soon as she'd satisfied her curiosity, she'd be back."
"I don’t like this," Chugger said darkly. "Nothing like this ever happened before you people arrived."
"But we wouldn’t!" cried someone else. "We would never waste food!"
"You’re shaking," she said. "Well, never mind. You don’t have to be by the fire if you don’t want to."
"If we let you come," she said, "you’ll have to work for us. You’ll have to do what we say."
"Our city was ending, too," said Lina. She looked up at the blue sky and thought about the sky in Ember: utter blackness, not a speck of light.
"Making friends is a better defense than making enemies."
"But you can’t grow food in the winter. It’s really cold. And clouds come over the sun. And it rains."
"Do you like being called cavepeople?" Tick cried. "Do you like being told to crawl back into a cave?"
"Tomorrow I'll see the city, tomorrow I'll see the city."
"Unfair, unfair, he kept thinking. He couldn't bear unfairness."
"Being good is hard. Much harder than being bad."
"People didn't make life, so they can't destroy it."
"Remember the city, the city remember, where treasure is hidden under the ground."
"It's far more precious than diamonds and gold."
"What you are proposing," said Mary, "is sending four hundred people to their deaths."
"Are we supposed to subject our own people to hardship and danger because of a bunch of refugees from a cave? Isn't it our job to protect our own people?" - Ben
"It's not true that we started with nothing. The founders of Sparks came here from the old cities, in a truck loaded with enough food and supplies to keep them going for months." - Mary
"But if they rebel against this order," said Wilmer, "then what?"
"We will send a truck with them, then," said Ben. "With barrels of water, some food, and some basic supplies."
"He won't let them kick us out," she said, "will he?" - Lizzie
"It's like a miracle!" - Doon, upon discovering the magnifying glass.
"We don't want to leave," she said. "And we don't want to fight. Do you think those are the only two choices?" - Lina
"But what could it be?" Doon said. "Just one weapon? I don't understand it."
"This is such an amazing world," he said finally, putting the glass and the magnet into his pocket. "I love it here, except for the troubles with people." - Doon
"It’s now, thought Lina. I have to do it. I will do it."
"I didn’t feel courageous," said Lina. "I felt afraid."
"The main thing," she said, "is this: we will refuse to be each other’s enemies."
"We can do it again," she repeated. "And we will."
"I have reworked the numbers. Tomorrow I head north."
"I guess he’s sorry for not being a good uncle, too—for not taking you to live with him."
"I am too happy," said Torren crossly. He sat down on the bench that Ben had just left and pulled the hunk of bread from his pocket.
"I plan to stay here, where something with real potential is beginning."
"We still don’t know who wrote the muddy words on the plaza—we may never know—but the other attacks on the people of Ember, the ugly writings on the walls of the Pioneer and the poison oak on the doorstep, were not carried out by Sparks villagers at all."
"You won’t believe it," Doon went on, "but it makes electricity."