1
Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.Ransom Riggs
2
If I never went home, what exactly would I be missing? I pictured my cold cavernous house, my friendless town full of bad memories, the utterly unremarkable life that had been mapped out for me. It had never once occurred to me, I realized, to refuse it.Ransom Riggs
3
...slow and drunk is no match for fast and scared shitless.Ransom Riggs
4
Millard! Who's the prime minister?"" Winston Churchill, " he said. "Have you gone daft?"" What's the capital of Burma?""Lord, I've no idea. Rangoon?""Good! When's your birthday?"" Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace!Ransom Riggs
5
At the heart of nature’s mystery lies another mystery.Ransom Riggs
6
I love you too, I wanted to say with as much hurtful sarcasm as I could muster, but she hadn't seen me, and I kept quiet. I did love her, of course, but mostly just because loving your mother is mandatory, not because she's someone I think I'd like very much if I met her walking down the street. Which she wouldn't be anyway; walking is for poor peopleRansom Riggs
7
She moved to pinch me again but I blocked her hand. I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting.Ransom Riggs
8
I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.Ransom Riggs
9
What would Golan Do? That way I can ask myself before I do anything. Before I take a dump. How would Dr. Golan want me to take this dump? Should I bank it off the side or go straight down the middle? What would be the most psychologically beneficial dump I could take?Ransom Riggs
10
No one here is embarrassed of their gift.Ransom Riggs
11
Have they built cities on the moon?" another boy asked hopefully." We left some garbage and a flag there in the sixties, but thats about it.Ransom Riggs
12
You Sure this is it?" I said. "It looks empty."" Empty? No way, there's loads of shit in there, " worm repliedRansom Riggs
13
Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace!Ransom Riggs
14
That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation.Ransom Riggs
15
..he had trampled her poor, pining heart, and the wound was still raw, even these many years later.Ransom Riggs
16
Hugh and Fiona stood off to one side, their hands linked and foreheads touching, saying goodbye in their own quiet way. Finally, we'd all finished with Claire and were ready to go, but no one wanted to disturb them, so we stood watching as Fiona pulled away from Hugh, shook a few seeds from her nest of wild hair, and grew a rose bush heavy with red flowers right where they stood. Hugh's bees rushed to pollinate it, and while they were occupied— as if she'd done it just so they could have a moment to themselves— Fiona embraced him and whispered something in his ear, and Hugh nodded and whispered.Ransom Riggs
17
But these weren't the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around--they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don't recognize them for what they are until it's too late.Ransom Riggs
18
Consider the simple hedgehog, and his neighbor, the opossum...do they waste their energy trying to throw one another into chasms when they face a common enemy, the winter? No!Ransom Riggs
19
What a beautiful day to go to hellRansom Riggs
20
You're upset, you're cold, and you're wet, wouldn't you rather discuss all this over a pot of hot tea?" Yes, but I wasn't going to say so.Ransom Riggs
21
Is anything illegal here?' Addison asked.' Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that's just for paperbacks.' There's a library?'' Two. Though one won't lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.Ransom Riggs
22
It's easy to say you don't care about money when you have plenty of it.Ransom Riggs
23
It seemed like my parents were always trying to get me to care about money, but I didn’t, really. Then again, it's easy to say you don't care about money when you have plenty of it.Ransom Riggs
24
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a amazing book, I love itRansom Riggs
25
I'd never asked what year it was here-1492? 1750?-though to the animals I guess it hardly mattered. This was a safe place apart from the world of people, and only in the world of people did the year make any difference.Ransom Riggs
26
You may choose to live in a world of fantasy if you like, my dear, but I am a realist.Ransom Riggs
27
They may love you', she whispered, 'but they'll never understand.Ransom Riggs
28
You have your world to rebuild, and I have mine.Ransom Riggs
29
Do you ever find yourself climbing into an open grave during a bombing raid..and wish you'd just stayed in bed?Ransom Riggs
30
Males lack the seriousness of temperament required of persons with such great responsibilities.Ransom Riggs
31
She had maintained her strength in the face of all this for so long that we had come to take it for granted, but she wasn't bulletproof. She might've been peculiar but she was also human,Ransom Riggs
32
Destiny is for people in books about magical swords. It's a lot of crap.Ransom Riggs
33
What I believe is that when it comes to big things in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You are here for a reason -- and it's not to fail and die.Ransom Riggs
34
Though I imagine we're killing ourselves right now in all manner of ways that'll seem insane to people in the future. And as doors to the next world go, a bog ain't a bad choice. It's not quite water and it's not quite land - it's an in-between place.Ransom Riggs
35
I was quite possibly in the midst of losing my mind. I needed to get away from people until I figured out if I actually was losing my mind.Ransom Riggs
36
I wondered whether trusting him was merely unwise or if it crossed the line into recklessness, like lying down for a nap in the middle of a road.Ransom Riggs
37
I cried harder. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't stop myself, so I thought about all the bad things and I fed it and fed it until I was crying so hard I had to gasp for breath between sobs.Ransom Riggs
38
They worried that fantasies were somehow inoculating me against more practical realities.Ransom Riggs
39
To have endured horrors, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that honorable and brave– that was magical.Ransom Riggs
40
Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone?Ransom Riggs
41
Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries–but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.Ransom Riggs
42
At the heart of nature's mystery lies another mystery.Ransom Riggs
43
An air of mystery closed around the details of his early life. I didn't pry. He had been through hell and had a right to his secrets.Ransom Riggs
44
Right at the flamingo orgy! Left at the multiethnic roof Santas! Straight past the pissing cherubs!Ransom Riggs
45
I knew there was something peculiar about you, " she said. "And I mean that as the highest compliment." I'd always known I was strange. I never dreamed I was peculiar.Ransom Riggs
46
A song and a smile from someone I cared about could be enough to distract me from all that darkness, if only for a little while.Ransom Riggs
47
Everything happens for a reason.Ransom Riggs
48
I slammed out of the Priest Hole and started walking, heading nowhere in particular. Sometimes you just need to go through a door.Ransom Riggs
49
Their memory was something tangible and heavy, and I would carry it with me.Ransom Riggs
50
Maybe, " she said. "Maybe. But now you're making promises you might not be able to keep, and that's how people in love get very badly hurt.Ransom Riggs
51
Which was just well: goodbyes had never been my strong suit anyway, and lately my life had felt like an unbroken series of them. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.Ransom Riggs
52
I'll never understand ninety-nine percent of humanity. - EnochRansom Riggs
53
When I was a kid, Granpa Portman's fantastic stories meant it was possible to live a magical life. Even after I stopped believing them, there was still something magical about my grandfather. To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and to have your life made unrecognised by it, to come out of all that the honorable and good and brave person I knew him to be - THAT was magical.Ransom Riggs
54
The day that lay before (was) full of infinite possibilities, though in a million superficial ways it was identical to the day before.Ransom Riggs
55
I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss.Ransom Riggs
56
She had a heart the size of France and the lucky few whom she loved, she loved with every square inch of it. But it's size made it dangerous.Ransom Riggs
57
...so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.Ransom Riggs
58
He closed the laptop. A sure sign I was about to receive his full attention.Ransom Riggs
59
By morning I was worn out. My limbs felt heavy as wood, my head cottony. I might've felt better if I hadn't slept at all.Ransom Riggs
60
Maybe I could use a little metal on the inside, I thought. If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now? Easy– I’d be at home, medicating myself into a monotone. Drowning my sorrows in video games. Working shifts at Smart Aid. Dying inside, day by day, from regret.Ransom Riggs
61
Anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After.Ransom Riggs
62
He was cross-examining my subconscious .Ransom Riggs
63
I wanted to thank you, " I said. She wrinkled her nose and squinted like I'd said something funny. "Thank me for what?" she said." You give me strength I didn't know I had, "; I said. "You make me better.Ransom Riggs
64
One of the peculiar children's perspective out of time allows him to take minute interest in every resident of the town and to chronicle everything we did for the entire day he lives over and over.Ransom Riggs
65
Early in life we recognize certain talents in ourselves, and we focus on those to the exclusion of others. It's not that nothing else is possible, but that nothing else was nurtured.Ransom Riggs
66
He’s lost it. Our son is insane. Or on drugs. Or maybe not on enough drugs.Ransom Riggs
67
They were of the past, and the past always mend itself, no matter how me interfere.Ransom Riggs
68
They were of the past, and the past always mends itself, no matter how me interfere.Ransom Riggs
69
What if there's no town for fifty kilometers?" Said Enoch."The we'll walk for fifty-one kilometers. But I know we weren't blown that far off course.Ransom Riggs
70
Forgive me. I continue to underestimate the breadth of your ignorance.Ransom Riggs
71
For a 12-year-old with a hyperactive imagination who liked to dream of dreary gothic castles, suburban Florida felt a little stifling.Ransom Riggs
72
Every snapshot collector has obsessions. Some only collect photos of cars. Others like World War II, or babies, or old-timey girls in old-timey swimsuits. I happen to collect the weird stuff: photos that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a little. The uncanny.Ransom Riggs