I’m Razo, a member of Bayern’s Own,” he said, stopping himself from adding “Loafing is just a hobby of mine.””Bayern’s Own? But you’re a child.” Razo looked up to the sky. “I’m not a child, I’m just short.

I was sorry to lose it, and if you make me another one, I promise not to get taken captive by bandits and have to use it to save my life.

Charlotte wondered if she would have recognized the crazy much earlier if he looked more like Steve Buscemi then Mr. Medieval Hotness.

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

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

You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.

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.

Isi, I’m trying to say that you’ve been… no, you’re so, you’re–” He stopped.”You are,” he said. His hand found hers, and he held her finger tightly, as though he did not dare to do any more than hold her one hand, and look at her, and breathe deeply.

Seriously, a thirty-something woman shouldn’t be daydreaming about a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world to the point where it interfered with her very real and much more important life and relationships. Of course she shouldn’t.

…first thing is that I love you. And the second thing is that as much as I honor your former profession, I don’t think your geese care much for your betrothed and I hope they hadn’t any plans on sharing our bed.

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.

If we’re mad, we’re mad in large numbers, at least larger than yours.

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.

You’re better than seven years of food. You’re better than windows. You’re even better than the sky.

And Isi always listened, never told Enna she had been foolish, never said hollow things like ‘You’ll be all right.’ . . . Isi saw Enna’s struggle and her sadness, and she understood.

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

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.

I, uh, I was teasing.

Why was the judgement of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?

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.

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

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.

And I want to wake up.

And this is where I’ll end, before I know what happens next.

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.

But I failed to force an apology out of the offending goose.

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

We found it!” Charlotte yelled, as they ran back through the house. “We found it, we found it!”Eddie, Mr. Mallery, and Colonel Andrews came from separate directions, converging in the front hall. Miss Charming was hopping up and down, her bosom nearly rising to slap her own forehead.

The snow was too light to stay, the ground too warm to keep it. And the strange spring snow fell only in that golden moment of dawn, the turning of the page between night and day.

I don’t know how you persist in being so stubborn-“”It’s a superpower. I was bitten by a radioactive mule.

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

Make haste” Jane added, just because she always wanted to say that.

I do like the world quite a lot.

So if I speak to you, Tutor Olana, will you get the lashes?

It doesn’t seem to matter what we think…The prince will come up here and look at us as if we’re barrels in a trader’s wagon. And if I’m salt pork and he doesn’t care for salt pork, then there’s nothing I can do.

Being a writer is a good, good thing.

Sometimes it seems my identity’s a matter of opinion

Yes, we’ll yell, ‘Help, help us, goose girl, and bring the terrifying legion of warrior geese’.

Do you know the feeling you get when you are awakened in the middle of a dream? The dream story is still real and full of color, but the waking world is rushing back into your mind. And for a moment both worlds are true, and you cannot quite tell them apart.

Duty doesn’t always fit comfortably.

There’s nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you’ve decided to hate.

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

… fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.

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...

All I’ve ever wanted was to be near you.

You saw my leg?””How can a man help what he sees?” he said. “And, if I could add, you possess a very fine leg.

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.

[Razo] knocked, peered inside, then jumped and shut the door, quiet as brushing two feathers together. He smiled at his own stealth, then swaggered right into a chair, banging it against the wall.You oaf. He cut short his swagger and began to move with exaggerated sneakiness.

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

Courage is not fearlessness.