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...

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...

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...

…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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

Courage is not fearlessness.

Clearly she was expected to say something, but panic at having to speak stole the thoughts from her head.

I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.

I know I would crumble if I lost you.

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.

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.