And I want to wake up.

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.

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...

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...

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.

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.

There you go…let it all slide out. Unhappiness can’t stick in a person’s soul when it’s slick with tears.

Duty doesn’t always fit comfortably.

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

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.

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

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...

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

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

…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.

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.

Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they’re gone and yet still mourn the good parts.

I was thinking how you can’t tell if a person’s beautiful or not by her shadow…

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...

He smiled in a way that made me want to kiss him right on the spot. Or the lips. Whichever was closer.

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

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.

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

..giving into despair was like eating poisonous berries to keep from feeling hungry.

Later, when they would spend straight hours conversing in the dark, Jane would realize that Henry kissed the way he talked- his entire attention taut, focused, intensely hers.

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

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

Sometimes it seems my identity’s a matter of opinion

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

I, uh, I was teasing.

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.

I do like the world quite a lot.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Courage is not fearlessness.

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.

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...

… If we don’t tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won’t believe it.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.

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.