Sometimes you just need to go through a door. Ransom Riggs More Quotes by Ransom Riggs More Quotes From Ransom Riggs I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Ransom Riggs escaping dream home Sometimes it's better not to look back. Ransom Riggs sometimes looks I was here for a reason. There was something I was meant not simply to be, but to do- and it wasn't to run or hide or give up the minute things seemed terrifying and impossible. Ransom Riggs giving-up impossible running I liked this idea: that peculiarness wasn't a deficiency, but an abundance; that it wasn't we who lacked something normals had, but they who lacked peculiarness. That we were more, not less. Ransom Riggs deficiency abundance ideas What I believe when it comes to big things in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You are here for a reason - and it's not to fail and die. Ransom Riggs everything-happens-for-a-reason things-in-life believe If I'd kept my heart better armored, where would I be now? Ransom Riggs my-heart ifs heart When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking. Ransom Riggs knocking I grew up feeling like a weirdo like many kids do. But I was lucky to find my own home for peculiar children. I went to a school for the gifted in Florida, and it was full of kids who - we were all strange together. And that was a real blessing. Ransom Riggs real home children There was a girl who could fly, a boy who had bees living inside him, a brother and sister who could lift boulders over their heads. Ransom Riggs girl brother boys If you must fail ... fail spectacularly! Ransom Riggs failure failing ifs I have an unusual hobby: I collect pictures of people I don't know. It started when I was a kid growing up in South Florida, the land of junk stores, garage sales, and flea markets, as a kind of coping mechanism. Ransom Riggs florida growing-up kids Our debt was too great and the words thank you too small. Ransom Riggs small-life debt life I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. Ransom Riggs peculiar would-be ordinary I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. The first of these came as a terrible shock and, like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After. Ransom Riggs half would-be forever Some truths are expressed best in the form of myth. Ransom Riggs myth form Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder. Ransom Riggs divulge now-and-then wonder Every snapshot collector has obsessions. Some only collect photos of cars. Others like World War II, or babies, or old-timey girls in old-timey swimsuits. I happen to collect the weird stuff: photos that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a little. The uncanny. Ransom Riggs girl baby war I've never really been interested in the vintage photos people pay lots of money for -- civil war tintypes or old daguerrotypes of famous people. Nor do I have any interest in the really gross, dark stuff that some people pay top-dollar, like post-mortem photos of babies (yuck) or press photos of old murder scenes or whatever. I collect in these little niches most other people don't care about -- dark-and-weird-but-fun -- and photos that have been written on, which a lot of sellers think hurts their value. All of which is good news for me! Ransom Riggs hurt fun baby I just like that balance of the real and the fantastical because as a reader and consumer of stories and fantasy, I always want to feel like I can find that world. Ransom Riggs balance real stories Whenever I try to map things out they inevitably change. Which doesn't mean I don't map them out I just try to embrace the better ideas that come along as my fingers are flying around the keyboard mid-draft! Ransom Riggs flying mean ideas