A Hat Full Of Sky Quotes
"Nevertheless, those who have managed to get to know them, and survive, say that they are also amazingly loyal, strong, dogged, brave and, in their own way, quite moral."
"They think they are dead. They like our world, with its sunshine and mountains and blue skies and things to fight."
"If you want to upset a witch, you don’t have to mess around with charms and spells– you just have to put her in a room with a picture that’s hung slightly crooked and watch her squirm."
"’Taint what a horse looks like, it’s what a horse be."
"A man’s a man o’ some standin’ when he’s got his own name where no one can touch it."
"Shame on ye, anyway. She’ll no’ want the like o’ Big Yan a-gawpin’ at her all the time, I’m sure."
"You mean like spectacles help you see but don’t see for you?"
"Always face what you fear. Have just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it’s not your fault it’s your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don’t always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don’t wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then open your eyes again."
"To see the world under her. The red-gold light of sunset was flowing across the land, and down there were the long shadows of Twoshirts and, further away, the woods and villages all the way back to the long curved hill of the Chalk— which glowed red, and the white carving of the chalk Horse burned gold like some giant’s pendant."
"But if you knew how to listen to the bees, you’d know everything that was going on, yes?"
"Well, an ondageist is the opposite. They’re obsessive about tidiness. He’s quite handy around the house but he’s absolutely dreadful if he’s in the kitchen when I’m cooking. He keeps putting things away."
"A hiver does have the ability to fear and to crave. We cannot guess what frightens a hiver, but they seem to take refuge in bodies that have power of some sort—great strength, great intellect, great prowess with magic."
"Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut it is."
"They say you can't breed good witches on chalk."
"A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and just hopes she never needs to."
"There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do."
"The way you tie the knots, the way the string runs—the freshness of the egg, perhaps, and the moisture in the air—all these things make a kind of... of picture of the here and now when you move them right."
"Knowing things is magical, if other people don’t know them."
"You do what you can. People give what they can, when they can."
"It’s amazing what you can store in other people."
"You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone’s poor round here. If I don’t help them, who will?"
"Only someone quite close would have heard the sob. It was quite faint, but it was carried on the dark red wings of misery."
"She wanted that sense, which had never left her before, of being where Achings had lived for thousands of years."
"She belonged to the Chalk. Every day, she’d told the hills what they were. Every day, they’d told her who she was."
"What would Granny Aching have done? But even folded in the wings of despair she knew the answer to that."
"And the people she’d seen in the picture had rather less messy ailments and their children didn’t have such runny noses."
"Only the kelda knew about the real hiddlin, which was this: the river of memory wasn’t a river, it was a sea."
"Tiffany thought: You stupid woman, standing there looking worried because you just haven’t got time to give people everything they demand!"
"‘Petulia’s come to see you, dear,’ said Miss Level, behind her."
"‘You’re not very clever and you’re too fat,’ said Tiffany."
"‘So,’ she said. ‘She’s learned how to Borrow, has she? Or she’s been Borrowed!’"