Shannon Hale

“Miss Erstwhile: “It is such a relief, Mr. Nobley, to already know that you find this exercise vulgar and your partner unworthy. It saves us the idle chitchat.” Mr. Nobley: “And yet you chat away.”

“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.”

“... and with my last thought I felt some real sympathy for those poor chickens.”

“If we're mad, we're mad in large numbers, at least larger than yours.”

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

“I know I would crumble if I lost you.”

“ The first building she reached appeared to be an old barn. Only one young guard stood before its bolted door, staring at her with wide eyes, holding up his sword in defense, She heated his sword and he dropped it, his expression barely changing, as if he had been expecting that. She held up her two swords to his throat, but they were two heavy, so she dropped one and held the other with both hands. "Where are the two Bayern boys kept?" The soldier shook his head. BURN HIM, prompted the fire. The excitement of burning was simmering in her, heating her up for more action.”

“Yes, we'll yell, 'Help, help us, goose girl, and bring the terrifying legion of warrior geese'.”

“... If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it.”

“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 heart took its time quieting down.”

“It's not something you tell your single best friend. It'd be like rubbing your nose in the poop of my happiness.”

“Careful with the accusations of insanity, oh my lady whose home is a tower with windows of brick, all for the sake of some skinny-ankled, laugh-prone boy of a khan.”

“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.”

“You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king. There is no such thing as royal blood. I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing.”

“What are you doing?" "Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly. It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window. "Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?" "You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.”

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little”

“This morning, Tegus welcomed me again with an arm clasp and cheek touch. I wasn't startled this time, and I breathed in at his neck. How can I describe the scent of his skin? He smells something like cinnamon-- brown and dry and sweet and warm. Ancestors, is it wrong for me to imagine laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes and breathing in his smell?”

“He had a dashing smile. It nearly dashed right off his face.”

“Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.”

“They weren't nice words he said. He could've lived a good life and died never having made a person feel rubbed down to bones and too sad to hold together. ”

“Personally, I believe “Young Adult” to be an arbitrary title that means the book "Can be enjoyed by anyone/Has a main character who’s not quite an adult/Isn’t really boring.”

“I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something that keeps us down.”

“My mama used to say, 'Are you sad? Then just wait a minute.”

“She was born Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she did not open her eyes for three days.”

“Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.”

“You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.”

“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.”

“But in a country where you hang your dead up on walls and pride whether or not a man bears a javelin more than his character, how am I to persuade you out of a war? It would be suicide for Kildenree to war on Bayern and butchery for Bayern to attack Kildenree. If you don't believe me, then send me back. Or if you don't trust me to leave, I'll return to my little room on the west wall and tend your geese, and you can be sure that on my watch no thieves will touch my flock.”

“We know it's all just daydreaming. In all likelihood, no one in this forest'll ever get a javelin, and I'll never see my mother's kingdom again, let alone be hailed by crowds as the jewel of Kildenree. Maybe it's vain to wish for it. But sometimes, it'd be nice just to hold something real in your hands that felt like a measure of your worth. Right Finn?”

“Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye. ”

“Nom, do say something funny so she can admire!”

“Its important to know stories. I felt the earth shift to make a place for you when you were born, and I came to tell you stories while you are young. And like me, you were born with a word on your tongue.”

“. . . as long as there are movement and harmony, there are words.”

“Razo hopped back up and adopted a posture that said he was completely unruffled, never had been, and in fact was ready to do something manly like lift boulders or swallow live worms.”

“What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was.It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

“You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.”

“I was under the stars, like a fish is under water.”

“I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself.”

“I do like the world quite a lot.”