“How I keep trying to force our story into a fairy tale, but from the beginning, it's been more like a nursery rhyme.""Bizarre and adorable?""Just like you.""With rings in your pockets and bells on your toes""Ooh, I should really invest in some toes bells.”

“Thank you," Becky whispered... "I wouldn't have survived that stool. It would have been 'Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.'"With rings on your fingers and bells on your toes even, " he said."Curious that meeting you is more nursery rhyme than fairy tale. If I see a farmer's wife with a butcher's knife, I'm running and not looking back.""And I'll have no nonsense from my dish and spoon.”

“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.”

“I heard a tale once,' said Isi, 'of the gifts of language. Do you know it? How in faraway places, there are people who can speak with birds or horses or rain, and some when they speak to other people have the unnatural power to persuade, their every word a kind of magic? Once in Ingridan I heard Sileph speak and wondered if he had not just walked out of that old tale.' Enna's skin tingled with an icy chill. Isi was trying to tell her something - Sileph had the gift of people-speaking. A dangerous gift, Isi had said once. When one with this gift speaks, it's not easy to resist the power of their persuasion. It's difficult not to adore them.”

“In some ways, I don’t feel as if I had a choice. Looking back at my childhood, even before I could read and write, I was making up stories. I love reading and I love telling stories, and the times in my life when I’ve tried to ignore that part of me, I’ve gone a little crazy. Characters start tugging on my sleeves, words start haunting me, and I feel generally unsatisfied. Really, being a writer sounds more like a mental illness than a professional choice.”

“Saying my story makes me want to change it, make it sound pretty the way I do with the stories I tell the workers. I'd like it to have a beginning as grand as a ball and an ending in a whisper, like a mother tucking in a child for sleep.”

“To be powerful, a kiss should make a journey, be its own story--begin with hesitation, move to realization, then melt into bliss.”