# Quote — John Crowley, Little, Big

> Sophie's hard first question to the cards had not, precisely, gone without an answer, it had been transmuted into questions about the question. It had branched and rooted like a tree, growing questions like buds, and then at some moment all the questions had become one question: what tree is this?

- Author: [John Crowley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley.md)
- Book: [Little, Big](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley/little-big.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Crowley#Little,_Big:_or,_The_Fairies'_Parliament_(1981)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley/little-big/sophies-hard-first

## More from this book

> Daily Alice awoke, as she always did, when the sun broke in at her eastward windows with a noise like music. She kicked off the figured coverlet and lay naked in the long bars of sun for a time, touching herself awake, finding eyes, knees, breasts, red-gold hair all in place and where she had left them. Then she stood, stretched, brushed the last of sleep from her face, and knelt by the bed amid the squares of sun and said, as she had every morning since she could speak, her prayers:

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley/little-big/daily-alice-awoke.md)

> This was the problem: if what had to be discovered lay in the what-was-to-be, then they could discover that easily enough. It was what-had-been that was hard to keep in mind. That's the way it is for beings who are immortal or nearly so; they know the future, but the past is dark to them; beyond the present year is the door into aeons-ago.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley/little-big/this-was-the.md)

> She wondered whether her head were so big as to be able to contain all this starry universe, or whether the universe were so little that it would fit within the compass of her human head. She alternated between these feelings, expanding and diminishing. The stars wandered in and out of the vast portals of her eyes, under the immense empty dome of her brow; and then Smoky took her hand and she vanished to a speck, still holding the stars as in a tiny jewel box within her.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-crowley/little-big/she-wondered-whether.md)