Greenglass House Quotes
"There is a right way to do things and a wrong way, if you’re going to run a hotel in a smugglers’ town."
"Smugglers are always going to be flush with cash as soon as they find a buyer for their contraband, but they never have money today."
"A huge, ramshackle manor house that looked as if it had been cobbled together from discarded pieces of a dozen mismatched mansions."
"After twelve years, he was even getting pretty good at predicting who was going to show up when."
"The old iron bell’s tone changed with the seasons too, and with the time of day."
"Vacation couldn’t possibly get spoiled so quickly, could it?"
"The fact that it sounded logical didn’t change the way Milo felt."
"Being surprised made him uneasy at the best of times."
"I could kind of believe that guy would take a chance on green and pink stripes."
"A knife stroke of windy night cut into the foyer."
"It’s just because that’s the way it usually turns out."
"There was a city that could not be mapped, and inside it a house that could not be drawn."
"A moment later, its passenger: a lanky man in a felt hat and a plain black coat."
"He was already trying to figure out how to convince people to switch from baskets to striped stockings for Easter."
"The Devil is a master gambler, and he makes his living off that sort of fool."
"He tried to listen. Then he tried to interrupt. Finally, he did what his mother did whenever Milo went on what she called 'a tear' and couldn’t be calmed down."
"There’s a sound behind him, coming from the wooded hill."
"The guests in the book agreed, of course, and in the next chapter Phin told the story of the Game of Maps."
"What if there’s some kind of—I don’t know, treasure or something, a secret—hidden in the house?"
"A real cat burglar wouldn’t have made any mistakes."
"The thief thought he or she was being clever because of the decoy paper, but missed all the stuff that tipped me off."
"A ghost story, though—something that happened here. Is that going to bother anyone?"
"Things never turn out well when you try to outwit destiny. Only fools do that."
"The boy smiled proudly and answered, 'His name is Michael Whitcher, and this house used to be ours.'"
"It isn’t only locked doors that hide treasures."
"The more you know about something, the better your chances are of finding it."
"If you’re looking for something, the more you know about it, the better your chances are of finding it."
"I thought maybe I could help try and find it. I’m good at finding things."
"I can't stop thinking that if Mrs. Hereward was sneaking around, it had something to do with the story she told."
"So are Sirin and Negret," he pointed out reasonably.
"This house was sewn right there on the bag. You saw it. And the gate, just like in the windows and on the map."
"Sometimes in a game you get rewards or find smaller treasures that help lead you to the big one."
"The best place to hide it would be someplace else in the house, and I bet I know all the good hiding places."
"Well, it’s virtually impossible for two very elite thieves to make a play for the same plunder without becoming aware of each other."
"The Otter was an expert in jewels and precious things, unparalleled at the sort of work it took to steal them."
"He was a master at the patient seeking of information, at knowing a mark so completely that that mark could not possibly keep secrets from him."
"The Eye found what he was looking for deep in the archives of the city."
"Her birth parents, she had never been able to learn anything about her birth parents, but she had always been curious."
"The only physical clue he had was a chart, an artifact connected to the house from the days when it was called Lansdegown."
"Nothing stayed hidden from the Eye, not for long; it had taken him very little time to locate a box of the same old paper in an abandoned warehouse."
"The two thieves arrived only hours apart, and then, of course, it was a race to find the house’s secret first."
"She turned up because she knew the Otter was there."
"All that time, while Otter and Eye had been falling in love, the person they loved had been falling in love too."
"I don’t know if I’ve ever haunted this house before, or if I did, for how long. I remember snippets of the time between . . . between when I fell and a couple of days ago when I met you."
"I knew something was wrong in the house, but I didn’t know it was him. It takes time for me to figure things out."
"I hate the idea, but I don’t know what else we can do."
"I’m not magic, I’m just . . . not like you. I can pass through walls, but you can’t, and neither can the people locked in your laundry room."
"It’s like remembering the middle past, the part after I died, but before this. I can get to it, but it takes time."
"You’re not an orphan, Milo. You have a family. You have two, even if one of them is a mystery."
"I could feel the seeking in the house. But they’re all looking for different things."
"I decided on you. I came up with the game. I thought maybe we could find the thing, the reason for the seeking, before the wrongness got too strong."
"We need a plan. Negret, it’s time that you and I talked about combat encounters."
"Combat? You aren’t saying we should actually try to fight them, are you?"
"We can beat him, if we’re smart. And we are smart. Smarter than he is."
"When it came down to adults versus kids, adults always seemed to have the upper hand."
"If the Devil could be beaten, surely an old man in ridiculous socks could be beaten too."
"You can’t unlock the door from in here either, you know."
"I see where you’re headed with this, my dear Negret. And I like it."
"Promise? Yeah, promise. Come on out and let’s get you back with everybody else."
"You will leave this house! You will leave my friends in peace."