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

don't be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life.

— Natalie Babbitt

Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear, obscuring foliage of our dreams.

— Natalie Babbitt

I was having that dream again, the good one where we're all in heaven and never heard of Tree gap.

— Natalie Babbitt

Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.

— Natalie Babbitt

Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.

— Natalie Babbitt

Right after graduation, I married Samuel Fisher Babbitt, an academic administrator. I spent the next ten years in Connecticut, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., raising our children, Christopher, Tom, and Lucy.

— Natalie Babbitt

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 moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

— Natalie Babbitt

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 moons, 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

The shriek cut thinly though the drizzling dimness, holding for a long moment. At last, it broadened and dropped to the old.

— Natalie Babbitt