"The woman gestured to a seat and put on a patient face. An impatient sort of patient face, like an impatient face dressing up as a patient one for Halloween."

"Courage is feeling justly afraid and yet still doing what is right."

"Life feels like fall of itself. A dream within a dream. And I want to wake up."

"We were quiet, two tiny specks glued down by gravity, peering at a universe that didn't notice us back."

"The book smelled dusty and old but also carried a sweet tang, a hint of something inviting. She opened to the first page and started to read, pronouncing the words in a reverent whisper."

"Don't let the inconsequential fairy tales stand in your way! You do what makes you happy, no matter what."

"I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky."

"I'd thought I wanted to live free of my mundane little cage, but the world outside was feeling more and more hazardous."

"In movies, we are accustomed to seeing handsome actors. It's so commonplace on the screen, large or small, that we barely note it as extraordinary. But in life, rarely do we encounter an onslaught of beauty, entire a hive of handsomeness, find ourselves awash in an ocean of attractiveness, drowning in a miasma of hotness."

"Fantasy is not practice for what is real-fantasy is the opiate of women."

"Over there!' 'Where?' Enna asked in mock panic 'Do you see something?"

"I do like the world quite a lot."

"Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her."

"I didn't raise you I be good and weak. I raised you to be powerful and happy."

"All I've ever wanted was to be near you."

"Even if things were broken right now. Sometimes it was the cracks that let the light in."

"They finished laughing and caught their breaths, and looked at each other, and Ani thought Geric looked at her too long, as though he forgot he was looking, as though he did not wish to do anything else. She looked back. Her took heart took its time quieting down."

"When you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful."

"Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be."

"That year, when the trees burned the fire of late summer into their leaves and the ground mist was a ghost of the river, long and wet and cold, the aunt looked from her windows to the walls around her and imagined another winter inside them. She began to see the world as a bird sees bars, and she scratched her arms beneath her sleeves."

"Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep her Happily Ever After."

"Don't beat yourself up,' said Charlotte. 'True love can be so easily mistaken for other things-friendship, humane concern, indigestion."

"Sometimes it seems my identity's a matter of opinion."

"But Princess Magnolia wore glass slippers on weekdays. Princess Magnolia was afraid of snails. Sunlight made Princess Magnolia sneeze. And at the moment, the Princess in Black was hog-tying a monster."

"Rin thought of the crossbow bolt. Of the whoosh and sting of wind and fire heat and the man who would have killed her. Of pushing in front of Enna. Of almost dying. Of home and Ma and being farther away than the lands in tales, and maybe never going home. Of standing by a strange tree in a faraway wood with girls who spoke the language of fire. Of a queen of Kel who wanted them dead."

"The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am."

"Hey, times are tough, and thirty gold coins can do a lot of good. But I guess you wouldn't know about needing money, since you grew up like a little princ...'(Rapunzel glares)'Prin... soner. I mean, prisoner! A prisoner in a tower, such a shame, that."

"I wish stories were kinder to their characters,' Maddie said. 'But I guess trouble is more interesting to read about."

"Briar stood, pushing up her sleeves. 'It's about to get all nonfiction in here'."

"My heart's so light it floats and carries me so my feet don't walk. I sing all day and I don't mind the washing, and that's how I know I'm in love. Completely smitten with My Lord the cat."

"Courage is not fearlessness."

"She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds."

"Fortune-teller tea. Give it a sip!'The liquid was pink and smelled of strawberries, but when Maddie drank it, the flavor was deep and a little bitter, followed by a sudden burst of sweetness.Her father returned. 'Well?' he asked.'It started out as black licorice and then melted into butterscotch,' she said.'Oh, my girl, the tea is telling you that this is the year to keep your ear to the ground and listen for surprises. Change is coming!'Maddie's stomach was full of thoughts and her head full of butterflies. She checked her watch again. She couldn't wait for it all to begin."

"My friends call me by my name.'You don't have any friends.'I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong."

"Reading a book is like going on a great journey. You don't know what'll happen, but something is bound to change. And for me, that change has always been good."

"I'm sorry, my lady, said Geric, rubbing his arm. 'But I failed to force an apology out of the offending goose."

"But, how do you know if an ending is truly good for the characters unless you've traveled with them through every page?"

"Ani saw herself clearly in that moment, as a face in darkness gains sudden dimensions in a flash of lightning - a young girl, a silly thing, a lapdog, a broken mare."