Top quotes by Ransom Riggs

I have an unusual hobby: I collect pictures of people I don't know. It started when I was a kid growing up in South Florida, the land of junk stores, garage sales, and flea markets, as a kind of coping mechanism. Votes: 21

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. Votes: 16

You find a lot of junk when you're searching through lost and tossed photo ephemera, but every so often you'll find a gem, a wallet-sized masterpiece you're certain could hang on the wall of a gallery if only someone with a name had taken it. Find one or two of those and you're hooked for life. Votes: 9

Fifty-percent of the director's job honestly is casting the movie well. Votes: 9

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. Votes: 8

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. Votes: 7

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. Votes: 7

Some of my favorite photos from the old days are of people who maybe didn't know how to smile. Maybe smiling in photos wasn't an accepted form of behavior back then. But the big eyes and the oversized dolls that people are carrying, and it's something about their hair - the anachronisms of these photos are really what creep me out. Votes: 6

Do you ever find yourself climbing into an open grave during a bombing raid and wish you'd just stayed in bed? Votes: 6

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. Votes: 5

Forgive me. I continue to underestimate the breadth of your ignorance. Votes: 4

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. Votes: 4

You Sure this is it?" I said. "It looks empty.""Empty? No way, there's loads of shit in there," worm replied Votes: 4

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. Votes: 4

The day that lay before (was) full of infinite possibilities, though in a million superficial ways it was identical to the day before. Votes: 4

Everything happens for a reason. Votes: 4

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. Votes: 4

Our debt was too great and the words thank you too small. Votes: 4

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. Votes: 1

he had trampled her poor, pining heart, and the wound was still raw, even these many years later. Votes: 1

Because from the day I met her I'd known I wanted to be part of any world she belonged to. Did that make me crazy? Or was my heart too easily conquered? Votes: 1

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." Votes: 1

That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation." Votes: 1

You may choose to live in a world of fantasy if you like, my dear, but I am a realist. Votes: 1

That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation. Votes: 1

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. Votes: 1

No one here is embarrassed of their gift. Votes: 1

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. Votes: 1

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. Votes: 1

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. Votes: 1

I grew up feeling like a weirdo like many kids do. But I was lucky to find my own home for peculiar children. I went to a school for the gifted in Florida, and it was full of kids who - we were all strange together. And that was a real blessing. Votes: 0

I had been writing since I was pretty small, and I've always been telling these stories about doors and finding other worlds within our own. Votes: 0

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. Votes: 0

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. The first of these came as a terrible shock and, like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After. Votes: 0

I just like that balance of the real and the fantastical because as a reader and consumer of stories and fantasy, I always want to feel like I can find that world. Votes: 0

I liked this idea: that peculiarness wasn't a deficiency, but an abundance; that it wasn't we who lacked something normals had, but they who lacked peculiarness. That we were more, not less. Votes: 0

I never remember nice dreams; only the bad ones stick. Votes: 0

I own a few thousand snapshots, which is small by the standards of most collectors I know. I generally only buy photos I think I may actually be able to use in a book one day. I need that focus when buying, because without it I'd just buy everything and my house would be overrun with bucket loads of snapshots; there are just too many beautiful images in the world, and I'd need to own them all. Votes: 0

I was here for a reason. There was something I was meant not simply to be, but to do- and it wasn't to run or hide or give up the minute things seemed terrifying and impossible. Votes: 0

I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated. Votes: 0

If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now? Votes: 0

If you are a conscious human being who has opinions about the world, then you will unconsciously put your own perspective into the book. Votes: 0

If you must fail ... fail spectacularly! Votes: 0

I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting Votes: 0

It's easy to say you don't care about money when you have plenty of it. Votes: 0

I've never really been interested in the vintage photos people pay lots of money for -- civil war tintypes or old daguerrotypes of famous people. Nor do I have any interest in the really gross, dark stuff that some people pay top-dollar, like post-mortem photos of babies (yuck) or press photos of old murder scenes or whatever. I collect in these little niches most other people don't care about -- dark-and-weird-but-fun -- and photos that have been written on, which a lot of sellers think hurts their value. All of which is good news for me! Votes: 0

Laughing doesn't make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better. It doesn't mean you don't care, or that you've forgotten. It just means you're human. Votes: 0

Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder. Votes: 0

My portal to another world was fiction. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Some truths are expressed best in the form of myth. Votes: 0

Sometimes it's better not to look back. Votes: 0

Sometimes you just need to go through a door. Votes: 0

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of these 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 that 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. Votes: 0

Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time. Votes: 0

There was a girl who could fly, a boy who had bees living inside him, a brother and sister who could lift boulders over their heads. Votes: 0

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret. Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder. Votes: 0

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high. Votes: 0

What I believe 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. Votes: 0

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking. Votes: 0

When you're writing, at least when I'm writing, I don't think about themes and I try not to sermonize with any particular message. Votes: 0

Whenever I try to map things out they inevitably change. Which doesn't mean I don't map them out — I just try to embrace the better ideas that come along as my fingers are flying around the keyboard mid-draft! Votes: 0

Your tribe is out there, you just have to find them. Votes: 0