Isobelle Carmody Quotes

The deepest wounds aren't the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Sometimes success demands a certain refined insanity.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Strength without compassion is soulless and cruel. Weakness, too, has its place, for it brings understanding.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Never trust a mirror,' his mother had told him. 'They never tell the truth unless you make them.

~ Isobelle Carmody

True sorrows do not pass like clouds or inclement weather...Sorrows are absorbed over time, and you reshape yourself around them. How you absorb them makes you what you are for good or ill. I think the only true and right way is to take our sorrows into us bravely and wholly, knowing they will hurt, and accepting that sometimes pain is unavoidable. It is when grief is suppressed or hidden that it does harm

~ Isobelle Carmody

Only humans think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exist's only in life. There is much good and evil alloted to each life.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness.

~ Isobelle Carmody

That was what happened to laughter when you caged it. It became unbearably sad. It was worse than crying.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Did you bite someone?' Jack enquired.'I laughed at people, which is much worse. My laughter has sharper teeth than any dog. It tears people apart who wish to be taken seriously, but I could not help myself. There were many complaints and finally a man in a brown suit came and looked at me. He was very important and not used to being laughed at, but I could see he had dandruff on his collar, and there was a spot of his breakfast egg on his lapel. You should have seen him - so puffed up and proud of himself. I couldn't help but laugh and that made people see him as I did, and so they laughed too. All of a sudden everyone realised that for all his status in official matters, he was a man who lived alone and was loveless.

~ Isobelle Carmody

You must not let me out,' it warned him gently, as it saw his eyes rest on the lock.'If you release me now that I know my nature, I could not help but unmake the enchantment of the mirrors. You see, they are tame now and they show only what people want and need to see in them. The wildness of them is bound up in my form, though I did not know it for a long time. If I were uncaged, I could not help but tear at the enchantment until I was unnamed. Then I would fly into all of the mirrors and windows and into shining footpaths after rain. The mirrors would become wild and they would be absolutely, utterly truthful. Everything would be seen for what it truly was. My laughter would greet every lie and every pretense. It would rumble like a volcano under the smooth surface of everything. You can imagine the chaos it would cause here, for those who dwell in the greylands do so because the mirrors are tamed. If I were free, people would come to be afraid of them. They would cease to believe in their reflections and eventually they would no longer believe in themselves. No, laughter must remain caged here.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Cracks especially. You have to be careful of the cracks.. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know were you will end up.

~ Isobelle Carmody

At last, I came to the Lost Dog's Home which my map told me marked teh turnoff to Shelly Beach.You could hear some of the dogs barking, calling out for their owners to come and get them away from there...I hated going to those places because I always wanted to take all the dogs home or let them go free, even though I knew most of them would go straight out and be hit by a car or starve to death. I sometimes wished I could have a place where I could take those dogs and let them live. The Phantom had this sanctuary called Eden and all the animals there lived together, even tigers and baby deer, because they'd never learned it's kill or be killed. The maneaters ate fish out of the lagoon and the island was protected by the Bandar poison pygmies and by the piranha fish in the lagoon. I would have liked there to be such a place for pets who had been dumped of abandoned. They could feed the owners to the piranha.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Life has always been a matter of putting one's feet down carefully

~ Isobelle Carmody

If human lives be,for their very brevity, sweet,then beast lives are sweeter still...

~ Isobelle Carmody

If we know one thing from experience it is that oppression does not crush rebellion, no matter how it tries,' I told him. 'It breeds it anew with every tyrannical act.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Oh yes. It's open all right, but not many people come in here to look at me now so there's no point in selling tickets. No one is interested in a man who professes to be a monster. They'll give me notice very soon. I started out being a great attraction, but people soon understood that what fascinated them about me was no more than the reflection of their own deformities. All I do is how them what is inside themselves,' He added mournfully.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Mama, don't take him. We need him,' Jack whispered. 'Please. He will not forget you if you let him stay with us. He will love you for ever and every time he laughs, he will remember how you once laughed...

~ Isobelle Carmody

I heard you laughing,' Jack said. He wanted to say something about the quality of that terrible laughter, but he did not know how to begin. So he said, ' I've never heard anyone laugh like you do.

~ Isobelle Carmody

Some foolish people must have a tragedy, for they cannot believe in happy endings

~ Isobelle Carmody