Stacey Lee Quotes

Stacey Heather Lee

Stacey Lee is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon. Her works tend to be contemporary and historical fiction, with some magical elements. (Stacey Lee Quotes)

“A community is like that shawl, and once you are a part of it, you tie your fate to the threads closest to you.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“A part of me understands the need to keep order, but another part worries that we are being led to fear the wrong things. It’s just like Chinatown and all the laws passed to contain us. We were never the enemy. The enemy was our country’s own fear.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“As for Headmistress Crouch, I pegged her as the type who wouldn’t have a mate, either because of her exacting standards, or because she ate him for dinner.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“As long as you have a home, you have a place to plan and dream.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Black women suffered greatly with the failure of Reconstruction, victims of both racism and sexism. Suffrage leaders who had worked toward the idea of universal suffrage antebellum began turning their backs on their black sisters to court the support of white Southern suffragists, whose interest in restoring white supremacy eclipsed their interest in enfranchising women.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“But when the smell of blueberries mingles with my own, I realize his placid expression is just a front. A lie, like mine, though a hundred times less cruel.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“Cheeks are a measure of one’s authority, and my high cheekbones indicate an assertive, ambitious nature. They were a gift from my mother, and I am proud of them, even though men shy away from women with that attribute.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Dignity can only be surrendered, and when it is gone, we are like the snail who has lost its shell. All it can do is find the nearest leaf and hope it’s not parade day.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Do not linger in the garden of memories, for there are many traps.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“Even if I did climb to the top of that mountain one day, people will never stop seeing my color first, before me.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Fly you crows. My father was not a spectacle. He was the greatest man I ever knew. He was my everything.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“How easily life can end on a misunderstanding. How fragile we all are, like spider silk on a branch of thorns.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“I don’t understand the constant need to prove one’s manhood, as if it is always on the verge of slipping away. We never need to prove our womanhood.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“I may have no notion of what’s in the beans for me now, with everything upside down and sideways. But one thing I know is that I belong in this moment.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“I misjudge and our teeth collide, but he gently corrects course instead of pulling away. When he kisses me back, all the hurt inside me floats to the surface and somehow drains away. It makes me want to laugh.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“I never said you didn’t have a heart. But it would be nice if it beat every now and then.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“I pat my mule’s neck and find comfort in the silky tufts of her mane. Father told me not to brood when people judged me for my wrapper, not my filling, or I would spend my whole life in the steamer.” (Stacey Lee Quotes)
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“I scold the worries away. As Ma likes to say, you cannot control the wind, but you can control your sails.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“In her last letter to her love, Percy, before she died, Hyacinth wrote, Somewhere between right and wrong lies a garden surrounded by thorns, and I have met you there.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“It is like the moon. We can see it differently by climbing a mountain, but we cannot outrun it. As it should be.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Justice and fairness are for other people, umbrellas that open only for certain heads. The Chinese just try to stay out of the rain, and if we are caught in a downpour, we make do, knowing that the rain will not last forever.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Maybe life just tastes sweeter after you’ve licked death.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“Maybe sorrow and its opposite, happiness, are like dark and light. One can’t exist without the other. And those moments of overlap are like when the moon and the sun share the same sky.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Maybe what matters is not so much the path as who walks beside you.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“Most people don’t know that heartache smells like blueberries.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“No one ever injured an eye by looking at the bright side.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“One should never confuse cost with value.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“People are like boats, always coming and going. Sometimes never returning. Now that his boat has sailed, the sea is empty for me.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Princesa came to rancho one day after her owner no want her. Says too much horse for him, too wild. But he’s wrong. She’s not wild, she’s spirited. ‘Wild’ means ‘I no care about what I do.’ But ‘spirited’ means, ‘I love what I do.’ Big difference.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“She reeks of insincerity, like dirty bathwater and pond salt.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“Some parents bring their children up and, I suppose, others let them down.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“Sometimes things fall apart so better things can come together.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Sometimes, things must get harder before they can change.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Somewhere between right and wrong lies a garden surrounded by thorns, and I have met you there.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“The biggest threats are the ones we fail to acknowledge”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“The husband business strikes Miss Sweetie as uncannily similar to the scramble that ensues during an Easter egg hunt, where the egg’s only hope is to sit as prettily as possible so that the it will be picked up before it spoils”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“The knowledge that the person to whom I am writing is also writing just one floor above me makes my shadow sit up straighter, and if shadows had smiles, I might see one reflected there.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“The men are not friends, but surely seeing the same person every day for twenty years fies them in your life in some way.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“The poor man, whose intentions were so quickly imagined for him because of the way the light hits his skin.” (Stacey Lee Quotes)
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“The tricky thing about giving opinions is that sometimes they cost you more than you wanted to spend.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“Their deaths might leave a hole in our hearts as deep as the ocean, but it is only because we are as deep as the ocean, and our capacity to love is as high as the sky. The earthquake took much from us. But there is much we can take from it as well”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“There are some people, when you meet them, you feel as if you’ve known them all your life. And then there are people who live under your nose all your life, yet you don’t know them at all.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“We are all like candles, and whether we are single or joined with another does not affect how brightly we can burn. Respectfully submitted, Miss Sweetie”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“We can run the race as well as any man. We only need the opportunity.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“We carry around the light of our loved ones who have passed. It is they who light the path for us.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“We have the same dirt under our shoes as they do.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“West looks up. ‘This is the best time to hunt, when the animals are out looking for their suppers. ‘Course, with a painted sky, light’s not always good.’ I never heard someone call the sky painted before, but it’s the perfect word. Clouds outlined in gold streak across the firmament, casting uneven shadows over the landscape.” (Stacey Lee Quotes)
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“What good’s a black face if it means I’m just someone else’s property? Why give me these arms and legs just to carry someone else’s load, not my own?”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky

“What I’m saying is, without hope, there could not be disappointment.”
Stacey Lee
The Secret of a Heart Note

“What is the job of a parent but to teach a child that she has worth so that one day she can transform herself into whatever she wants.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“When a law isn’t just, I believe it’s okay to disobey it. In fact, I believe we are morally obliged to disobey it.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“When I began my women’s cycles, the only thing Old Gin said about it was that all meadows, after an awkward stretch as a thicket, eventually ripen into beautiful forests.”
Stacey Lee
The Downstairs Girl

“While I might not have received a full St. Clare’s education, somehow I picked up something better. Friends who care enough to knock on your pumpkin and make sure you haven’t gone mushy inside.”
Stacey Lee
Outrun the Moon

“You want my take, there’s nothing wrong with matching people up according to the stars, because at least someone gave a thought to it. Lots of deuces leap the altar ’cause they like getting sacked, and lots of girls agree ’cause they think they got no choice. Ain’t fair to the human race, and that’s the short of it.”
Stacey Lee
Under a Painted Sky