Bridge to Terabithia

17 Nostalgic 'Bridge to Terabithia' Quotes That'll Make You Ugly Cry

Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open.
Katie Mather
October 17, 2016
“You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.”
— Leslie Burke, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Belief, beauty
“It's like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Growing Up, Smart, scary
“It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: strength, Vision, beauty, caring
“She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there—like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Old Self, Left Behind, Alone
“It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go; it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing - one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye should have been. Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.’”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Afraid, Pieces Missing, Life, No Guts
“'We need a place,' she said, 'just for us. It would be so secret that we would never tell anyone in the whole world about it.'

She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. 'It might be a whole secret country,' she continued, 'and you and I would be the rulers of it.'”
— Leslie Burke, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Secret, New World, Rulers
“Leslie was one of those people who sat quietly at her desk, never whispering or daydreaming or chewing gum, doing beautiful schoolwork, and yet her brain was so full of mischief that if the teacher could have once seen through that mask of perfection, she would have thrown her out in horror.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Mischief
“When she mentioned lunch, he realized with horror that he would need money, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he hadn’t brought any—didn’t have any to bring, for that matter. But before he had time to figure anything out, she said, ‘Now I’m not going to have any argument about whose paying. I’m a liberated woman, Jess Aarons. When I invite a man out, I pay.’”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Lunch, Money, humor, Friendship
“Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Mind, open mind, Imagination
“Jess wouldn’t argue that, but he saw her as a beautiful wild creature who had been caught for a moment in that dirty old cage of a schoolhouse, perhaps by mistake.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: creature, Wild, beauty, mistake
“Jess tried going to Terabithia alone, but it was no good. It needed Leslie to make the magic.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Magic
“Jess drew the way some people drank whiskey. The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw. Animals, mostly. Not regular animals like Miss Bessie and the chickens, but crazy animals with problems—for some reason he liked to put his beasts into impossible fixes… He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn't dare. When he was in first grade, he told his father than he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He'd thought he would be pleased. He wasn't. 'What are they teaching in that damn school?' he had asked. 'Bunch of old ladies turning my son into some kind of a—' He had stopped on the word, but Jess had gotten the message. It was one you didn't forget, even after four years.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Magic, Art, Artist, Fix
“He believed her because here in the shadowy light of the stronghold everything seemed possible. Between the two of them they owned the world and no enemy, Gary Fulcher, Wanda Kay Moore, Janice Avery, Jess's own fears and insufficiencies, nor any of the foes whom Leslie imagined attacking Terabithia, could ever really defeat them.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Imagination, Magic, New World, Defeat
“He screamed something without words and flung the papers and paints into the dirty brown water… He watched them all disappear. Gradually his breath quieted, and his heart slowed from its wild pace. The ground was still muddy from the rains, but he sat down anyway. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere. Ever again. He put his head down on one knee. 'That was a damn fool thing to do.' His father sat down on the dirt beside him.

'I don't care. I don't care.' He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe. His father pulled Jess over on his lap as if he were Joyce Ann. 'There, there,' he said, patting his head. 'Shhh. Shhh.'”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Death, Stuck, trapped
“It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be?

Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world—huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care—everything—even the predators.)

Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

As for the terrors ahead—for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him—well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie? Right.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Death, Terrors, Moving On, Vision, strength
“You never know ahead of time what something’s really going to be like.”
— Leslie Burke, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Thinking Ahead, Anticipation
“It was not that she expected anything expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry.”
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
Tagged: Friendship, admiration