Geek Girl Holly Smale Quotes

Nobody hopped into a wardrobe to find Narnia; they hopped in, thinking it was just a wardrobe. They didn't climb up the Faraway Tree, knowing it was a Faraway Tree; they thought it was just a really big tree. Harry Potter thought he was a normal boy; Mary Poppins was supposed to be a regular nanny. It's the first and only rule. Magic comes when you're not looking for it.

I didn't need to transform after all. My name is Harriet Manners and I am a geek. And maybe that's not so bad after all.

Because here's the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own

You need to stop caring what people who don't matter think of you. Be who you are and let everybody else be who they are. Differences are a good thing.

Nobody really metamorphoses. Cinderella is always Cinderella, just in a nicer dress. The Ugly Duckling was always a swan, just a smaller version. And I bet the tadpole and the caterpillar still feel the same, even when they're jumping and flying, swimming and floating. Just like I am now.

Your daughter is adorable. I've never seen such an alien duck in my entire life.

1. You left a multipack of Mars Bars on top of your wardrobe. Can I have one? Dad x 2. I had three. Hope that's OK. Dad x 3. I'm just going to have one more. Dad x 4. Harriet, your Dad's made himself sick on an entire multipack of Mars Bars again. Please don't leave sweets where we can find them. A x

The internet lied to me?

She's....having an affair with a strawberry jam manufacturer?

Oh." Dad frowns. "Why hasn't Annabel been teaching you how to walk in heels? I thought we had an agreement: I teach you how to be cool and she trains you how to be a girl." I stare at him in silence. This explains so much.

Have you been sniffing glitter again?

Never underestimate the power of a well-placed apostrophe.

...Our stories are drive by who we are and what we do, and not by the events that happens to us.

That's the truth about people with obsessively organised plans: we're not trying to control everything in our lives. We're trying to block out the things we can't.

Tortoises are incredible creatures," Dad says earnestly. "What they lack in elegance and beauty they more than make up for in the ability to curl up and defend themselves from predators." "What, like me?

I suddenly realise that it doesn't matter how far I go, or how lost I am, or how lonely I feel. I fit in here. I always will. That's how I know I'm home.

Nick? Any idea?" Nick coughs too. "Nope. No idea at all." Wilbur gives him a stern look. "So what was the point in doing all the Jane Austen stuff if she doesn't know about it, Poodle-bottom?

We don't have time for all this adorable Darcy and Lizzie tension, Kitten-cheeks.

It's 4:40am and i'm standing in the middle of a Quentin Tarantino version of Finding Nemo

Our future selves are only as good as our past selves believe we can be

If I tell you, you'll panic." "I won't." "You will. You'll panic, and then I'll panic, and then you'll panic again, and she'll be able to tell we're weak and she'll eat both of us.

Gary nips my finger and starts clawing his way up my shoulder, hissing like an angry kettle. It's just not natural for something so cute and fluffy to be so nasty. I look at Nick in distress. "Why is he spitting at me?" "Maybe he thinks he's a llama.

Why are you such terrible parents?" I yell. "I don't know," Dad yells back. "Why are you such a naughty little spider?

My impact on hearts is like an earthquake happening on the other side of the world: if I'm lucky, I can hope for a teacup tinkling in its saucer. And even then it's a bit of a surprise and everybody talks about it afterward.

She's probably so mesmerized by her own beauty she can't move away from the mirror," I hear Wilbur stage-whisper. "It's why I'm always late." Then he knocks on the door as well. "Look away from the reflection, baby," he shouts through the wood. "Just look away and the spell will be broken.

Well?" Nat says after a few seconds. "I'm surprised you're here again, Harriet. I thought you'd be busy auditioning for A Midsummer Night's Dream." I blink a few times in surprise. "No. I'm not." "You should be. I heard they're looking for an ass." Oh. Now why can't I think of quips like that when I need them?

My name," I tell Wilbur in the most dignified voice I can find, "Was inspired by Harriet Quimby, the first female American pilot and the first woman ever to cross the Channel in an aeroplane. My mother chose it to represent freedom and bravery and independence, and she gave it to me just before she died." There's a short pause while Wilbur looks appropriately moved. Then Dad says, "Who told you that?" "Annabel did." "Well, it's not true at all. You were named after Harriet the tortoise, the second longest living tortoise in the world." There's a silence while I stare at Dad and Annabel puts her head in her hands so abruptly that the pen starts to leak into her collar. "Richard," she moans quietly. "A tortoise?" I repeat in dismay. "I'm named after a tortoise? What the hell is a tortoise supposed to represent?" "Longevity?

There are 7,123,024,873 people in the world, and nick keeps choosing me

You know, I've worked out that if I lived on Mercury I'd be sixty-six years old tomorrow. I'd be twenty-six on Venus, and half a year old on Saturn. I'm only sixteen because I'm on this planet.

That's the beauty of the summer holidays. It's as if life is just a big Etch-a-Sketch, and once a year you get to shake it vigorously up and down and start again.

Apparently humans share fifty per cent of their DNA with bananas. My father is a constant reminder of that.

what are you doing here?" "Obviously I'm doing laundry, Harriet." I raise my eyebrow. He looks completely at ease with this terrible excuse, which - considering the fact that he has no laundry with him - is a little worrying.

I came to get you. I knew you'd freak out." "But..." My head still feels like a helium balloon. "Why?" Nick looks blank. "Because you always freak out." I shake my head. My voice feels like I've swallowed it. "I mean, why do you care if I freak out?" There's a long silence. "Well," Wilbur finally bursts, "I can take a shot in the dark, if you want." "Seriously," Nick snaps, making his fingers into a gun shape. "I'm going to take a shot in the dark in a minute and it will make contact." Wilbur looks charmed. "Isn't he adorable?" he says fondly. "My duty as Fairy Godmother is complete, anyhoo, and I believe it's time to spread my magic dust elsewhere. So many pumpkins after all; so little time.

Scientist say that music can change the speed of a heartbeat. They failed to add: so can a text message.

They say fiction is the closest well ever get from magic. Open a book and an entire world will pop out and it doesn't matter if it's dragons or Victorian children or wizards. You are immediately someone else and somewhere else

The rest of my Thursday can be summarised thus: - Nat tells me to bite her. - I don't. - I am forced to sit next to Toby for the entire two-and-a-half-hour return coach journey. - He tells me that water is not blue because it reflects the sky, but actually because the molecular structure of the water itself reflects the colour blue and therefore our art teacher is wrong and the authorities should be alerted. - I pull my jumper over my head. - I stay under my jumper for the next two hours.

We don't unfold ourselves like pieces of paper for everyone to see: that's not how humans work. There are always parts of us we shut away or hide. Bits of ourselves we can't touch because they're too precious and buried too deep. Fragments of truth we barely admit to ourselves. Because sometimes editing our own story is the only way to get through it.

The sad fact is, there are 7.220.400.641 people on the planet, but right now I haven't got a single one to talk to.

People like their high-fashion models to look as deeply unhappy as physically possible You can't have beauty and contentment: it would just be unfair.

This might surprise you, but here's a fact: people who plan things thoroughly aren't particularly connected with reality. It seems like they are, but they're not: they're focusing on making things bite-size, instead of having to look at the whole picture. It's procrastination in its purest form because it convinces everyone—including the person who's doing it—that they are very sensible and in touch with reality when they're not. They're obsessed with cutting it up into little pieces so they can pretend it's not there at all.

Did you know that the chances of being in a plane crash are less than 0.00001 per cent? That means that you’re more likely to be killed by a donkey or to naturally conceive identical quadruplets.” Bunty

Does a caterpillar sit on the same leaf when it's a butterfly? No! It goes for a little fly and sees something of the world. Does the tadpole stay in the same pond once it's a frog? No! It stretches its legs, goes for a jump, explores other waters. Did Cinderella go back cleaning hearths once she married the prince? ... Transformation means moving forward. If a butterfly stays on the same leaf and a frog stays in the same pond, then they may as well have stayed a caterpillar or a tadpole. There was no point in metamorphosing.

I’m slowly beginning to realise how ironic it is that I’m so good at learning lessons inside school, and so terrible at learning any outside it.

I can change my plans. But I can't change my family.

Because falling in love doesn't have to mean dropping your best friend in the process.

a) not thinking about Nick and b)

There's a humpback whale in the ocean that sings at fifty-two hertz: too low for any other whale to hear. Scientists aren't sure if it's a genetic anomaly, or a sole survivor of an extinct species, or just a whale who accidentally learnt the wrong song. They just know that it's probably the loneliest mammal on earth.

Don't you get it yet,Harriet?" Nick says in total exasperation. "i like that you know about the stars in the rain and the shapes of the clouds and the heartbeat rate of the hummingbird. I like that you know that giraffes don't have vocal cords and the sharks can't stop moving. I like the way you stick your little nose in the air.....

Mr Bott sits down and gestures gracefully to the board. "As you are clearly both fascinated by this text, would you like to explain the significance of Laertes in Hamlet?" He looks at Alexa. "Please go first, Miss Roberts." "Well..." Alexa says hesitantly. "He's Ophelia's brother, right?" "I didn't ask for his family tree, Alexa. I want to know his literary significance as a fictional character." Alexa looks uncomfortable. "Well then, his literary significance is in being Ophelia's brother, isn't it? So she has someone to hang out with." "How very kind of Shakespeare to give fictional Ophelia a fictional playmate so that she doesn't get fictionally bored. Your analytical skills astound me, Alexa. Perhaps I should send you to Set Seven with Mrs White and you can spend the rest of the lesson studying Thomas the Tank Engine. I believe he has lots of buddies too.

Humans are supposed to have 70,000 thoughts a day

I loved all of this boy: the good bits and the bad. And I knew that, when it came, I would love his sadness too.

My Best Friend and I have spent plenty of time together, despite me being in my First Ever Relationship. This is because friends should always come first.

And this way, l'll leave everything behind before it gets the chance to do the same to me.

Why do you always rescue me?" — "Every Cinderella needs a fairy godmother. But sometimes your fairy godmother needs you right back.

They say that life is just a blank chain, and precious moments are the beads we hang off it to make it beautiful.

There are approximately 13,914,291,404 legs in the world—over half of them in trousers—and I had to grab this one?

Maybe it's just a matter of thinking positively. Believing that we can all change, if we try hard enough.

OH, MY MINI-HUMMINGBIRDS, THIS IS THE BEST DAY THAT HAS EVER BEEN BORN IF DAYS WERE BORN WHICH THEY’RE PROBABLY NOT BUT WHO CARES I MADE IT! I’M IN! I’M FINALLY IN PROPER FASSSHHHIIIOOON.

I can only conclude that her feelings toward me are very similar to what I've read about love: passionate, random, inexplicable, and totally uncontrollable. She can't help hating me any more than Heathcliff could help loving Cathy. It's simply written in the stars. Which would be quite sweet if she wasn't such a cow all the time.

Czar Nicholas the Second was overthrown by Lenin in 1917." I blink in surprise. "Yes," I say, "he was." "And do you think I want to know that? IT's not even on your exam syllabus. I never had to know that. So now it's your turn to pick up a few pairs of shoes and make ooh and aah sounds for me becuase Jo ate prawns and she's allergic and she got sick and couldn't come and I'm not sitting on a bus on my own for five hours, OK?" Nat takes a deep breath and I look at my hands in shame. I am a selfish, selfish person. I am also a very sparkly person; my hands are covered in gold glitter.

I’ve fought dragons, attended balls and chased a whale. I’ve won wars, lost court cases, travelled India, ridden broomsticks and stranded myself on numerous islands. I’ve died a dozen times. Because here’s the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own.

Also," Bunty adds cheerfully, "how many cats did you have when you left?" "One," Annabel says, putting her hand over her face. "You have three now." Bunty swings hrt bag over her shoulder. "See you at Christmas, lovelies!" And my grandmother disappears as abruptly as she arrived.

They say fiction is the closest we ever get to magic. Forget top hats and rabbits: open a book and an entire world will pop out. And it doesn't matter if it's dragons or Victorian orphans or wizards. You are immediately somewhere else and someone else. Transported. It's not like that with textbooks.

Now and then, you get to put somebody else at the top of your list.

Because the people I love always find their way back in the end.

Cinderella is always Cinderella, just in a nicer dress. The Ugly Duckling was always a swan, just a smaller version.

If people are kind to you, it's because you're kind to them. If people are there for you, it's because you are there for them.

If people are kind to you, it’s because you are kind to them. If people are there for you it’s because you are there for them.

Love puts itself first, and makes its own plans. It maps you out instead. Maybe that's what makes it perfect

Everything will land sunny side up: all I need to do is stay positive.

Our future selves are only as good as our past selves believe we can be.

Every Cinderella needs a fairy godmother, Baby-baby Panda,” he says, shrugging and putting his sunglasses on. “But sometimes your fairy godmother

that one teaspoon of a neutron star weighs billions of tonnes,

Because that's the truth about people with obsessively organised plans: we're not trying to control everything in our lives. We're trying to block everything we can't.

Toby “my knees buckle when I run” Pilgrim. Toby “I bring my own Bunsen burner to school” Pilgrim. Toby “I wear bicycle clips on my trousers and I don’t even have a bike” Pilgrim.

y name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek.

The blue whale has a heart big enough for a human to crawl through its ventricles.

A friend. The kind that will happily hurt for you, and you’ll hurt for in return.

people who plan things thoroughly aren’t particularly connected with reality. It seems like they are, but they’re not: they’re focusing on making things bite-size, instead of having to look at the whole picture. It’s procrastination in its purest form because it convinces everyone—including the person who’s doing it—that they are very sensible and in touch with reality when they’re not. They’re obsessed with cutting it up into little pieces so they can pretend that it’s not there at all.

Because it's not the walking away from love that's the hard part: it's the falling in. It's losing yourself to it and not knowing who you are without it. It's needing somebody else more than you need yourself. It's being happier with them than you are on your own.

Nick grinned, swooping in for another kiss and then leaning back and scruffing his hair up. “Harriet Manners, I’m about to give you six stamps. Then I’m going to write something on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope with your address on it.” “OK …” “Then I’m going to put the envelope on the floor and spin us as fast as I can. As soon as either of us manage to stick a stamp on it, I’m going to race to the postbox and post it unless you can catch me first. If you win, you can read it.” Nick was obviously faster than me, but he didn’t know where the nearest postbox was. “Deal,” I agreed, yawning and rubbing my eyes. “But why six stamps?” “Just wait and see.” A few seconds later, I understood. As we spun in circles with our hands stretched out, one of my stamps got stuck to the ground at least a metre away from the envelope. Another ended up on a daisy. A third somehow got stuck to the roundabout. One of Nick’s ended up on his nose. And every time we both missed, we laughed harder and harder and our kisses got dizzier and dizzier until the whole world was a giggling, kissing, spinning blur. Finally, when we both had one stamp left, I stopped giggling. I had to win this. So I swallowed, wiped my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then I reached out my hand. “Too late!” Nick yelled as I opened my eyes again. “Got it, Manners!” And he jumped off the still-spinning roundabout with the envelope held high over his head. So I promptly leapt off too. Straight into a bush. Thanks to a destabilised vestibular system – which is the upper portion of the inner ear – the ground wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Nick, in the meantime, had ended up flat on his back on the grass next to me. With a small shout I leant down and kissed him hard on the lips. “HA!” I shouted, grabbing the envelope off him and trying to rip it open. “I don’t think so,” he grinned, jumping up and wrapping one arm round my waist while he retrieved it again. Then he started running in a zigzag towards the postbox. A few seconds later, I wobbled after him. And we stumbled wonkily down the road, giggling and pulling at each other’s T-shirts and hanging on to tree trunks and kissing as we each fought for the prize. Finally, he picked me up and, without any effort, popped me on top of a high wall. Like Humpty Dumpty. Or some kind of really unathletic cat. “Hey!” I shouted as he whipped the envelope out of my hands and started sprinting towards the postbox at the bottom of the road. “That’s not fair!” “Course it is,” he shouted back. “All’s fair in love and war.” And Nick kissed the envelope then put it in the postbox with a flourish. I had to wait three days. Three days of lingering by the front door. Three days of lifting up the doormat, just in case it had accidentally slipped under there. Finally, the letter arrived: crumpled and stained with grass. Ha. Told you I was faster. LBxx

she was camped out in a llama sanctuary in Nepal.

spending

stop caring what people who don’t matter think of you.

Be mysterious - nobody likes to know everything about anyone.

You didn't need to do that. Lie for me, I mean." "I didn't," he says simply. "Who do you think wrote the sign on the door downstairs in the first place?

Nat's face is like thunder. Which is an analogy that makes no sense because thunder is sound so technically it doesn't look like anything, but I don't have time to find a better one because my best friend is about to kill me.

People are like glass. Some you can see straight through; others shine bright lights and iridescent colours everywhere they go. Some you look at and see parts of yourself reflected, and you look into some and see nothing but darkness. Some people magnify so that everything around them seems bigger anc more beautiful, while others can make even the largest things seem infinitely smaller. People can be cracked or chipped, fragile or scratched, and still stay in one piece: even more precious and loved for all of their broken parts. But sometimes ... people shatter.

Because these aren't just dresses. They're portals: ways of time-travelling without moving. A little bit of me went into each of them, and it's as if I can see myself in each of them, standing there like a ghost. As if every emotion, every thought, every hope, every memory I had is still drifting visibly through them like smoke. These are all part of who I am and who I was, and they're also part of who I will be. My very own historical timeline.

The orchestral music is glorious but I wish they'd stop playing for a minute: it's very hard to eavesdrop properly over a grand piano and full accompaniment.

I don't really get sad," Nick said, staring at the ceiling. "I'm just one of those cool, aloof guys who stays chilled at all times. You know the type. We're everywhere in fiction

That was rather discombobulating." I laughed. "Discombobulating? Where did that word come from?" "I might have stolen it from you." "You can have it on loan." "Thanks. I'll check it back in when I don't need it any more.

There's a beep. And, in that fraction of a second, I see it all → . . Me in bed, covered in lipstick and talcum powder; falling down the coach aisle; smashing into a hat-stall; climbing under a table; thirty hands in the air; spinning under a spotlight; jumping in the snow; a ponytail, cut off; sitting on a catwalk; standing on a doorstep; my first kiss, on a television set. I see a Japanese fish market and an octopus; a sumo stage; a glass box and a hundred dolls; a shining lake; a zebra crossing; a brand-new sister. I see New York and a governess; a fairground ride; a planetarium; a party; Brooklyn Bridge. Toilet paper and Icarus; dinosaur biscuits; posters; Marrakesh and a monkey; parties of stars. Picnics and coffee; an advertising agency; a doppelganger; an Indian elephant and firework clouds of paint; a cafe, filled with pink. I see Sydney and diving and a fashion show that glittered with gold. In short: I see a whole world, opening behind me. And a new world, opening in front. A world that I fit into perfectly.

Of all the things I love about Nick, this is what I love most. I love his calmness. I love the way my brain spirals out of control while next to it his moves in a straight and steady path. As if I'm a little tugboat in a storm, being thrown about by the waves and the currents, and he's the big ship I'm anchored to for safety.

Apparently, a butterfly's wings are actually transparent, but thousands of tiny scales reflect light at different wavelengths. In my stomach now, I can suddenly feel them: glinting and flickering inside me. Every color of the rainbow.

It's not the end, Table Girl. We're just hitting pause. LBxx PS ILY

I did tell you I'd always be behind you." "You did," I say, leaning forward and pulling open a door slightly to the left of her. "But do you know what that logically means, Alexa?" "What?" I put a hand gently on her shoulder. "It means I'll always be in front.

Oh, Hamlet," I say woodenly. "How, umm, nice of you to come back with a different, err, face and outfit." "I'm the Dr Who of Shakespearean heroes,

Dear Nick, I Know we made this decision together. I know we both thought it would be less painful to break up before the distance did it for us. I really believed it was the right thing to do: that it wouldn't hurt as much this way. But I can't imagine anything could be harder than this. And I don't think I'm OK. I came back from New York and I was so devastated I shut myself away from my best friends, and now they've shut themselves away from me too. I've done everything I can to feel happy again. I've been to Morocco and ridden on camels and danced in the desert: I've chased my inner star. I've thrown myself into modelling and done whatever it takes to make new Friends at school so I'm not alone, even though I don't really understand them most of the time and I don't think they understand me either. I'm trying so hard to move on without you. But I'm not, Nick. I'm not moving anywhere. All the things I wrote in the last letter... they weren't true. Or they were, but it wasn't what I really meant. I was hiding behind Facts and figures because I didn't Know how to say this: Every day you're changing, you're growing, you're living, you're out there being you, and the only thing staying the same is me. I'm still here, holding on to you. Stuck in the past. Trapped in it. Burying myself in it. Drowning in it. And I don't know what to do to make it better. I miss you, Nick. I've missed you every day, every hour and every second since you've been gone. And I miss the bit of me you took with you. Harriet xxx

You know, Manners, this was an incredibly extreme way to pass on a message. You could have just rung. Or sent a postcard." And I suddenly remember our race to the postbox last summer: happy and giggling and dizzy from the roundabout and the sunshine and the kissing. "I could have," I smile back. "I guess this time I just wanted to get here first.