Trenton Lee Stewart Quotations

I wanted to go to Sesame Street! I remember distinctly running through my neighborhood, thinking I knew how to get to Sesame Street, and then finally finding myself among some scrub trees and realizing I don't know where to go from here. I had to just mope back home.

I was always interested in the possibility maybe of finding my way into a big adventure.

I remember distinctly running through my neighborhood, thinking I knew how to get to 'Sesame Street,' and then finally finding myself among some scrub trees and realizing I don't know where to go from here. I had to just mope back home.

I think when I started to write 'The Mysterious Benedict Society' that I had that kind of thing in mind - the notion of having to be able to solve puzzles and riddles because enormous stakes rode upon your ability to do that.

I tend to find characters who lack vulnerability dull.

Browsing the first editions at my local independent bookstore, I came across 'Pastoralia,' a collection of stories by George Saunders. I'd read one of the stories in it already, and several other Saunders stories in magazines and anthologies, and liked them all.

No sooner had he thought this than he realized what was anchoring his happiness. It was purpose. He knew what he wanted to do. He knew the way he thought things should be, and Mr. Harinton was proving that other people--even adults--could feel the same way. Nicholas had something to aim for now. He might not know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he knew with absolute certainty how he wanted to be.

Nicholas Benedict did have an exceptional gift for knowing things (more exceptional, in fact, than most adults would have thought possible), and yet not even he could know that this next chapter was to be the most unusual-and most important-of his entire childhood. Indeed, the strange days that lay ahead would change him forever, though for now they had less substance than the mist through which he ran.

She announced her age right away, for children consider their ages every bit as important as their names.

They stared out their window at night enough to know where the darkest shadows lay, and it was to the darkest shadows they kept.

At this, Constance sat down on a rock and covered her face. She seemed smaller than ever now - so small the harbor breeze might catch her up like a scrap of paper and carry her away, carry her into nowhere.

The gym is always open, except when it's closed.

So what's your team called?" asked Kate, twisting her legs into a pretzel-like configuration, "We're called the Winmates because we're inmates who win." Kate looked back and forth at Reynie and Constance, searching their expression for signs of delight. "You gave yourselves a name?" asked Constance. Now it was Kate's turn to be baffled. "You didn't? How can you have a team without a name?

... Speaking of which, the boys weren't actually touching the breifcases in the trunk, I hope?" Wondering how Milligan knew, Kate stuck her head out the office door and gave Reynie and Sticky a warning look. They nodded and tried to close the trunk as quietly as possible. "They aren't now anyway." "Good," Milligan said, picking up his duffel bag. "I'd hate to have to speak sternly to them again. It embarasses me to be so ineffective.

But you have said it too often, Mr. Benedict!" said Mrs. Perumal in an imperious tone that was quite out of character. "And if you continue in this vein, I'm afraid we'll be compelled to cut our visit short. Surely there are other establishments that would host an entire troup of guests - indefinitely and without reward - and not feel obliged to apologize for it!

Somhow those Ten Men -- at the time they were called Recruiters, of course -- discovered that Constance had been at the library. Most likely one of their informants saw her come out, because it was on that very day that the brutes showed up and threatened the librarians. Who told them nothing, incidentally.' 'The same thing happened in Holland,' Kate reflected. 'You'd think these guys would learn their lesson -- librarians know how to keep quiet.' 'It helps to ask politely,' said Mr. Benedict

Mr. Harinton was real. There were adults in the world who would actually make sacrifices for others - not just for their own families but for anyone who needed help. Nicholas had always had the impression that families looked after one another, and he had come to understand that, on rare ocassions, children would do the same... But this was different. What Mr. Harinton was doing certainly helped Nicolas - but it also simply felt right to Nicholas. It made him want to be exactly like Mr. Harinton himself.

Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone?

No one seems to realize how much we are driven by FEAR, the essential component of human personality. Everything else - from ambition to love to despair - derives in some way from this single powerful emotion.

If you like to tell stories and compose sentences, and if you work hard at being good at these things, then you are a writer even if you haven't published anything.

Every great thinker keeps a journal, you know.

If we're just trying to be accurate, then how about 'The Doomed to Fail Bunch'?" said Constance. "Honestly! We can't even name ourselves.

Reynie's fce fell. 'It's not funny, Kate.' For a moment - a fleeting moment - Kate looked desperately sad. 'Well, of course it's not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry?

What is life without laughter?

You've read half the books in this house? This whole house?" "Well, approximately half." Sticky said. "To be more accurate, I suppose I've read more like" - his eyes went up as he calculated - "three sevenths? Yes, three sevenths." "Only three sevenths?" said Kate, pretending to look disappointed. "And here I was prepared to be impressed.

I'm an orphan!" Constance cried gleefully. "I'm an orphan!" ~ The Prisoner's Dilemma

Milligan! Come and tell us why you're so dreadfully glum!" ~ Constance, The Mysterious Benedict Society

Rules and school are tools for fools! I don't give two mules for rules.

Au contraire..." "What?" Constance demanded. Curtain blinked. ~ The Perilous Journey

'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!' And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society

Children are capable of such open rudeness.

The missing aren't missing, they're only departed, All minds keep all thoughts - so like gold - closely guarded,

Grow the lawn and mow the lawn always keep the TV on, brush your teeth and kill the germs, poison apples, poison worms.

Oh, here's a clever one. Do you remember this question from the first test?It reads, 'What wrong with this statement?' And do you know what Constance wrote in reply? She wrote, 'What's wrong with you?

Why, then, do you think the white player might have done it?" Reynie considered. He imagined himself moving out his knight only to bring it right back to where it started. Why would he ever do such a thing? At last he said,"Perhaps because he doubted himself.

And please don't call me that." I didn't call you 'that', I called you George Washington.

Remember, children. For every exit, there is also an entrance. ~ Milligan, The Mysterious Benedict Society

She was a thin woman in a mustard-yellow suit, with a yellowish complexion, short-cropped rusty red hair, and a stiff posture. She reminded Reynie of a giant walking pencil.

Listen, just do what you think is right, and we'll support it." ~ Sticky Washington, The Prisoner's Dilemma

Good grief! They're going to call us inside soon, and Sticky hasn't even met Madge yet!" "Who's Madge?" Sticky asked. "Her Majesty the Queen!

Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could. "Why are you flinching?" the pencil woman asked. "I don't know. I thought maybe you were going to slap me." "Don't be ridiculous. I could slap you perfectly well with your eyes open. I'm only going to blindfold you.

Oh dear,"cried Rhonda just then, for Mr. Benedict, awash in strong emotion, has gone to sleep.with a sudden loud snore he toppled forward into the attentive arms of Rhonda and Number Two, who eased him to the floor. "What's wrong with him?" Constance asked. "He has narcolepsy," said Kate. "He steals a lot?" "That's kleptomania," Sticky said. "Mr. Benedict sleeps a lot.

It just supports my personal opinion that he's a wacko

Kate seemed to have doubled in size. She had drawn back her broad shoulders and set her jaw, and something in the stance called to mind the contained ferocity of a lioness. But it was the fierceness in Kate's bright blue eyes that had the most striking effect. The sort of look that made you thankful she wasn't your enemy. "It's not going to be over," Kate said firmly "Until we say so.

In other words, you are our last possible hope. You are our only hope.

Remember the White Knight.

I've only just arrived, Kate. It may surprise you to learn that you were my top priority.

The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle, And some have been known to fall in it. In tennis it's nothing, but it can be received, And sometimes a person may win it. Though not seen or heard it may be perceived, Like princes or bees it's in clover. The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle, And without it one cannot start over.

Everything is as it should be.

Don't thank me,' Mr. Curtain called as the door slid closed. 'Impress me!

You are the smartest children i know. You just don't beleive it.

I think when I started to write The Mysterious Benedict Society that I had that kind of thing in mind - the notion of having to be able to solve puzzles and riddles because enormous stakes rode upon your ability to do that.

In the candle's flickering light, the library's thousands of books emerged from the shadows, and for a moment Nicholas could not help admiring them again. During free time he had almost never looked up from the pages he was reading, but now he saw the books anew, from without rather than from within, and was reminded of how beautiful they were simply as objects. The geometrical wonder of them all, each book on its own and all the books together, row upon row, the infinite patterns and possibilities they presented. They were truly lovely.

Poor Kate,"said Constance,"she's lost her marbles.

Now listen, we need to be quiet as mice. No, quieter than that. As quiet as...as..." "Dead mice?" Reynie suggested. "Perfect," said Kate with an approving nod. "As quiet as dead mice.

Is this what family is like: the feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing, the whole thing’s broken?

Daddy, will you take me to the mill, again?

One problem with being a leader, is that even among your friends you are alone, for it is you -- and you alone -- to whom the others look for final guidance.

May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.

You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.