Tuck Everlasting Quotes

“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Life's got to be lived, no matter how long or short. You got to take what comes.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“You can't have living without dying. So you can't call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“dont be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“For some, time passes slowly. An hour can seem like an eternity. For others, there was never enough. For Jesse Tuck, it didn't exist.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Don't fear death, fear the un-lived life”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“And suddenly, she longed for a thunderstorm.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down, in ever narrowing dimensions, till it meets all other pieces at the center of the earth? Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“How old are you, anyway?' she asked, squinting at him.
There was a pause. At last he said, 'Why do you want to know?'
I just wondered,' said Winnie.
All right. I'm one hundred and four years old,' he told her solemnly.
No, I mean really,' she persisted.
Well then.' he said, 'if you must know, I'm seventeen.'
Seventeen?'
That's right.'
Oh,' said Winnie hopelessly. 'Seventeen. That's old.'
You have no idea,' he agreed with a nod.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Well, thought Winnie, crossing her arms on the windowsill, she was different. Things had happened to her that were hers alone, and had nothing to do with them. It was the first time. And no amount of telling about it could help them understand or share what she felt. It was satisfying and lonely, both at once.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“...with white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“For, through the twilight sounds of crickets and sighing trees, a faint, surprising wisp of music came floating to them and all three turned toward it, toward the wood.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Closing the gate on her oldest fears as she had closed the gate of her own fenced yard, she discovered the wings she'd always wished she had.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“You dont have to live forever just live.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“I'm not exactly sure what I'd do, you know, but something interesting - something that's all mine. Something that would make some kind of difference in the world. It'd be nice to have a new name, to start with, one that's not all worn out from being called so much.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Still-there's no use trying to figure why things fall the way they do. Things just are, and fussing don't bring changes.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The way I see it," Miles went on, "it's no good hiding yourself away, like Pa and lots of other people. And it's no good just thinking of your own pleasure, either. People got to do something useful if they're going to take up space in the world.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“I was having that dream again, the good one where we're all in heaven and never heard of Treegap.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thush, too.
And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. Thats the way it's suppose to be. That's the way it is.
If we didn't move it out ourself, it would stay here forever, trying to get loose, but stuck. That's what us Tucks are, Winnie.
We ain't part of the wheel anymore.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“Time is like a wheel. Turning and turning - never stopping. And the woods are the center; the hub of the wheel. It began the first week of summer, a strange and breathless time when accident, or fate, bring lives together. When people are led to do things, they've never done before. On this summer's day, not so very long ago, the wheel set lives in motion in mysterious ways.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“It goes on,” Tuck repeated, “to the ocean. But this rowboat now, it’s stuck. If we didn’t move it out ourself, it would stay here forever, trying to get loose, but stuck. That’s what us Tucks are, Winnie. Stuck so’s we can’t move on. We ain’t part of the wheel no more. Dropped off, Winnie. Left behind. And everywhere around us, things is moving and growing and changing. You, for instance. A child now, but someday a woman. And after that, moving on to make room for the new children.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“You really have to love words if you’re going to be a writer, because as a writer, you certainly spend a lot of time with words.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go?”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting