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Elle McNicoll Quotes

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Famous Elle McNicoll Quotes

“I push it all into the tree, using both hands. As I do, I feel the shame, the fear, the anxiety of it all transfer into the bark. I push the horrible word Emily used into it with a final shove. And I feel free. Because I know, after all of it, that there's nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me. I will not let people use my difference, as a stick to beat me with. I imagine throwing that stick into the river. Watching it disappear and float away. I press my forehead against the trunk of this giant tree. "Mary," I breathe. "Jean." Another breath. "Maggie." I leap back from the tree, as if I've been shocked by a spark. I breathe heavily, staring up at it. It seems less frightening. Less powerful. I'm still breathing in and out as Mum, Dad, Nina and Keedie move to stand behind me. No one says anything. We stand, the five of us, by the tree and the river while all of the past blows away. And we stand steady.”

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Book:A Kind of Spark
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“Nobody speaks. And the tree stands just ahead of us. I walk towards it, trancelike, and I am glad that no one is following me. It towers over me with a defiant agelessness. Branches gnarled and threatening, some thin enough to snap in two. Others that are thick enough to throw a rope over. I touch its bark. Dad said once that you can tell the story of a tree by cutting it open. I sometimes feel that way. I can't always express what I am feeling out loud. But with paper and pen, I can make sense of everything. There would be no paper without trees, even cursed ones like this.”

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Book:A Kind of Spark
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“It was impossible to describe Allegra. He knew the human. The girl with the mole on her neck. The girl who would only say "bless you" twice—if you sneezed a third time, she was silent. The girl who picked at her lips when she was nervous. The girl who carried her own hot sauce around. The girl who stared off into space, sometimes for minutes on end. The girl who only made eye contact when she was listening to you, rarely when she was speaking to you. The girl who loathed smelly cheese. The girl who unconsciously mimicked people's accents. The girl whose entire face transformed when she laughed. His Allegra. The one millions would never know. The one he had earned through one summer of working with her, and one night in a glass house.”

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Book:Wish You Were Her
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“I love music. It sets everything in me alive. Every hair stands out on end. I feel like there's a box in my heart, a secret, hidden part of myself. I keep so many things locked inside that box so that no one else will ever see. And when I listen to music, alone in my room with my giant headphones on, the box flies open and all of the colours spill out and somehow merge with the music. I love the feeling. All of my masking and my reservations leave and the hidden parts of my soul come out.”

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Book:Show Us Who You Are
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