Russell Hoban

“Love me or I will kick you very hard.”

— Russell Hoban

Explorers have to be ready to die lost.

— Russell Hoban

More and more I'm aware that the permutations are not unlimited.

— Russell Hoban

Is there an existence that is only mine?

— Russell Hoban

Them as counts counts moren them as dont count

— Russell Hoban

“Mark you that and noat you wel.”

— Russell Hoban

Words have a life; without response they die.

— Russell Hoban

A family is everybody all together.

— Russell Hoban

“He was thinking what a long and wide thing time is, to have so many happenings in it.”

— Russell Hoban

Language is an archaeological vehicle... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.

— Russell Hoban

After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same…

— Russell Hoban

It's almost as if we're put here on earth to show how silly they aren't.

— Russell Hoban

“Oh, yes," said Mother, "you may be sure that there will always be plenty of chocolate cake around here.”

— Russell Hoban

There must be a lot of people in the world being wondered about by people who don't see them anymore.

— Russell Hoban

If reality had a stage door I'd hang around there to see what comes out after the show.

— Russell Hoban

“But more and more I think that madness is the world's natural condition and to expect anything else is madness compounded.”

— Russell Hoban

The Zoo is a prison for animals who have been sentenced without trial and I feel guilty because I do nothing about…

— Russell Hoban

“A turtle doesn't have to decide every morning whether to keep on bothering, it just carries on. Maybe that's why man kills…

— Russell Hoban

Time's arrow, we are told, is a one-way thing. . . Memory's arrow, like the needle of a compass too close to…

— Russell Hoban

“Have you paused to consider that there is no way out? Each way out of one situation necessarily being the way into…

— Russell Hoban

“All roads, whether long or short, are hard," said Frog. "Come, you have begun your journey, and all else necessarily follows from…

— Russell Hoban

Who is Alice?" asked mother. "Alice is somebody that nobody can see," said Frances. "And that is why she does not have…

— Russell Hoban

The zoo is a prison for animals who have been sentenced without trial and I feel guilty because I do nothing about…

— Russell Hoban

Sometimes there's nothing but Sundays for weeks on end. Why can't they move Sunday to the middle of the week so you…

— Russell Hoban

“There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the…

— Russell Hoban

“I was on South Bank one day by the Royal Festival Hall. It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky.…

— Russell Hoban

What a weird thing smoking is and I can't stop it. I feel cosy, have a sense of well-being when I'm smoking,…

— Russell Hoban

Too-lateness, I realized, has nothing to do with age. It’s a relation of self to the moment. Or not, depending on the…

— Russell Hoban

“The mouse and his child, who had learned so much and had prevailed against such overwhelming odds, never could be persuaded to…

— Russell Hoban

When I write a book, I don't have a plan or an outline. The characters move the action, and the action develops…

— Russell Hoban

“Sometimes I think that this whole thing, this whole business of a world that keeps waking itself up and bothering to go…

— Russell Hoban

“Before the motorcar replaced the horse, and for some years after there were many illustrators who drew horses with the same authority…

— Russell Hoban

“It isn't at all suprising that horses figure in so many diffrent ways in myth and story-there is such power in them…

— Russell Hoban

“People write books for children and other people write about the books written for children but I don't think it's for the…

— Russell Hoban

“Before the motorcar replaced the horse, and for some years after there were many illustrators who drew horses with the same authority…

— Russell Hoban

“I think of the turtles swimming steadily against the current all the way to Ascension. I think of them swimming through all…

— Russell Hoban

An ordinary mirror is silvered at the back but the window of the night train has darkness behind the glass. My face…

— Russell Hoban

“(Frances has gotten out of bed again and come to her parents' room...) 'How can the wind have a job?' asked Frances.…

— Russell Hoban

“Before the motorcar replaced the horse, and for some years after there were many illustrators who drew horses with the same authority…

— Russell Hoban

“The worl is ful of things waiting to happen. Thats the meat and boan of it right there. You myt think you…

— Russell Hoban