9 quotes
I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
“Just go with it. It won’t hurt.”
I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
I knew enough about adults to know that if I did tell them what had happened, I would not be believed. Adults rarely seemed to believe me when I told the truth anyway. Why would they believe me about something so unlikely?
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
We picked some pea pods, opened them and ate the peas inside. Peas baffled me. I could not understand why grown-ups would take things that tasted so good when they were freshly-picked and raw, and put them in tin cans, and make them revolting.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid unshakably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
I wondered where the illusion of the second moon had come from, but I only wondered for a moment, and then I dismissed it from my thoughts. Perhaps it was an afterimage, I decided, or a ghost: something that had stirred in my mind, for a moment, so powerfully that I believed it to be real, but now was gone, and faded into the past like a memory forgotten, or a shadow into the dusk.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)