Shannon Hale Quotes

“She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.”

“No more crying. It’s all wetness and no comfort at all.”

“She wished, not for the first time, that she had been born with the gift of people-speaking. Ani was sure that Selia could have gotten past those guards with a few seductive words.”

″‘You’re Enna,’ said Ani. ‘That’s somebody.’ Enna smiled. ‘So’s Isi.’ Is she? thought Ani. Then I’d like to be her. I’d like to be somebody. ‘She is, you are,’ said Enna, as though she had heard Ani’s doubt.”

“Her eyes lingered a moment on Selia, and she found herself thinking, She would be better at playing princess than I am. The thought stung. Ani wanted so badly to do it right, to be regal and clever and powerful. But too often her only truly happy moments were the bursts of freedom, stolen afternoons on her horse’s back, brief, breathtaking rides past the stables to where the gardens turned wild, her lungs stinging with the cold, her muscles trembling with the hard ride.”

″‘It’s a payback,’ she said, grabbing a cold bean pie. ‘They put colored eggs in one of my chickens’ nests for a week. I poured every medicine I knew down that poor hen’s throat and laid witch-bought charms around her nest until I finally spotted a bit of point on some hay. Devilish, they are.‘”

“Ani laughed. ‘A goose girl should feel honored to be mistaken for a lady with land to put a horse on, sir.’ ‘You didn’t say ‘sir’ when you stole my horse. Geric. My name’s Geric.‘”

“Jok made the sounds indicating he was ready to sleep, so she took off her hat and unwound her hair, scratched her head, and sighed. The weight of her hair on her back reminded her that she was not who she was. That she was a secret.”

“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.”

“Geric,” she called. He turned back around. “What kind of flowers were they?” “I don’t rightly know,” he said. He made faltering gestures with his hands, forming their size and shape from the air. “They were yellow, and smallish, and had lots of petals.” “Thank you,” she said. “They were beautiful.”

“When the queen at last set down the parchment and met her daughter’s eyes, Ani was expecting an accusing stare and was surprised by the sorrow that weighed down her features. She could not tell if the sorrow was for her father or for her. A thought buzzed in Ani’s head: I do not know this woman at all. Her stomach turned uneasily.”

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

“Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming. You’re my good-luck bird, Jok. I’ll be lucky if I can do as well as you when this is all done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.”

“Ani lay down and, putting one arm over her face as though it were a wing, tried to shut out the world where she did not belong.”

“I can see that one can never pay back Gilsa for the fear that she will give again.”

″‘Fraud?’ said Selia. ‘Royalty is not a right, Captain. The willingness of the people to follow a ruler is what gives her power. Here, in this place, by this people, I have been chosen. These men are tired of being told whom to follow. Now they have a choice, and they use that choice to call me Princess.’ Selia’s words seemed seductively convincing. Even Ani, peering through pine boughs, had to stop herself from nodding. But Adon stepped up beside Talone and challenged her.”

“Ani thought perhaps it was that she cared too much. She was constantly worried about what others thought of her, and how every word she spoke could condemn her further. Ani thought how to explain that to Selia and decided that she could not. Selia’s ease with strangers and friends alike made Ani sure she would not understand.”

“I, Geric-Sinath of Gerhard, declare that you’re beautiful and you’re perfect and I’ll slay any man who tries to take you from my side. Goose girl, may I kiss you?”

“Is this why you kept me away from my siblings all these years? Not because you were training me to be queen, but rather protecting them from me because you knew you would be sending me away? Separation, elevation, delegation- it was all just a ruse.”

“Ani tried to respond with friendly attentiveness. Ani felt as dumb at conversation as she had over Gilsa’s cooking pot that day she prepared the lunch, the contents turning blacker and smelling fouler despite her anxious attempts. She had no practice at making friends. And, she discovered, her own trust had been drained dry.”

“Ani was eager to learn the voice of every bird that nested on the palace grounds, but the swan pond drew her return day after day. She loved to watch them swim so slowly that the water hardly rippled and watch every silent, mild movement shimmer into meaning. Soon her throat and tongue could make nearly all the sounds of the swans, and she trumpeted gleefully.”

“The queen shook her head. ‘You should never have been only a little girl, you should have always been a crown princess.‘”

“Ani rode. She did not see the trees that dashed by her and the branches that moved like executioner axes just above her ducking head. There was no purpose to the direction the horse ran—except away.”

“Just think of it, Crown Princess, you can start a new life with new possibilities. You will decide who you are.”

“The winter breeze still brushed against her cheek, and again she heard her name— Princess—and what had laid on her tongue since the morning of her birth now loosened.”

“In Austen’s world there was no such thing as a fling. Every romance was intended to lead to marriage.”

“Movie actors fall in love with each other on the set all the time. Is it so outlandish to suppose it might happen to me?”

“I don’t know how to have a fling. I’m throwing myself at your feet because I’m hoping for a shot at forever. You don’t have to say anything now, no promises required.”

“On meeting, a gentleman is presented to the lady first because it is considered an honor for him to meet her.”

“It’s also the most perfect romance in all of literature and nothing in my life can ever measure up, so I spend my life limping in its shadow.”

“She felt as though she belonged inside the aloneness. “I’ve never felt at home with myself.”

“He makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, every day of my life.”

“I’ve only been half myself lately, and I thought coming here would let me work this part out of me so I could be me again.”

“It’s only natural to confuse truth and fantasy as they play parts in a theatrical.”

“Each time the men in your life disappoint, you let Mr. Darcy in a little bit more.”

“I cherish you more than farms love rain, than night loves the moon, and so on...”

“Who wanted to reassure her? Mr. Nobley or the actual man, Actor X?”

“You are aware that at this time a lady of thirty-three would be an affirmed spinster and considered unmarriageable.”

“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.”

“Doing next to nothing all day was taking its toll.”

“Maybe I really don’t want this, she thought. This is summer camp. This is a novel. This isn’t home. I need something real.”

“Did you love me most when I was drugged and helpless, Sileph? Did you love me when I was so baffled by the king’s-tongue that I actually thought you were a man? You loved a shell, then.”

“They laughed much harder than the memory was funny because it felt good to laugh.”

“Hello, Razo. Enna loves me, did you hear?”

“She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby’s neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.”

“BURN HIM, prompted the fire. The excitement of burning was simmering in her, heating her up for more action.”

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

“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.”

“Finn always called it Enna’s Stream. He tended to refer to most anything as belonging to her—Enna’s Meadow, Enna’s Mountain. When he referred to Yasid as Enna’s Kingdom, she said, ‘Isn’t that your heart?’ Finn smiled and kissed her hand. Isi rolled her eyes.”

“He’s just Finn. We’ve been friends too long and I know him too well, you know? And he’s still a boy, Doda. If I ever find a man, he’ll have to be a man, really a man, to handle me”

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

“I’m a terrible prince. I should put my kingdom first and everything else second, but your first. I want you by my side every second . . .”

“She dismounted, grabbed Enna’s hand so tightly that she drew blood with her fingernails, walked straight into the nearest cottage, and plopped down on a bed. Enna nodded to the startled cottage dwellers. ‘It’s the queen, you see,’ said Enna. ‘She’s going to have a baby in your house. You don’t mind?‘”

“For the past few years, all her childhood friends has begun to work in the quarry, and Miri had grown used to solitude in her house and on the hilltop with the goats.”

“She was tired of lowlanders belittling her and tired of wondering if they were right. She was going to show Olana that she was as smart as any Danlander. She was going to be academy princess.”

″‘Has anyone ever told you that you have a laugh that makes others want to laugh?’ ‘Doter, my neighbor, always says, ‘Miri’s laugh is a tune you love to whistle.‘”

″‘Do you have any idea what it takes to find quiet stone?’ said Doter in her round, loud voice. ‘Quiet stone - the linder that sleeps, that is good and sound, has fissures in just the right places, but not too many.‘”

“The victorious girl will be introduced to the prince as the academy princess, and she will wear this dress and dance the first dance. His bride will still be his to choose, but the academy princess is sure to make a significant impression.”

“But the hawk was the second most precious thing. 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.”

“That makes Mount Eskel important even to lowlanders.”

″‘Seems strange. I thought they’d dislike us even more.’ ‘Maybe it’s hard to respect someone you’re cheating,’ said Marda.”

“At the academy, I found a book that explains how linder is sold in the lowlands. Apparently, our stone is so prized that the king himself will only use linder for his palaces, and the only place in all of Danland that produces linder is right here. So because demand for linder is high and supply is limited it’s worth a great deal.”

“Olana paused, and expression of disgust crawling over her face. ‘What a stench! Do you people live with goats?‘”

″‘For that week, she didn’t let me out of her arms.’ ‘Of course not, why would she? You were tiny and scrawny and fuzzy, and also the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, excepting my own.‘”

″‘I was mistaken. Six of the books are yours to keep. You certainly excelled in Commerce.’ Miri suspected Olana was being generous, but she did not argue. She selected six books and hugged them to her chest. They felt like the most valuable things in the world, better than a little gold coin, better than a wagon full of linder.”

“This past summer, the priests of the creator god took council on the birthday of the prince. They read the omens and divined the home of his future bride. All the signs indicated Mount Eskel.”

“This little girl is giving me an opportunity to illustrate the consequences of rule breaking. Even the prince’s cousins are punished when they choose to misbehave, though I think I’ll employ slightly different methods for you.”

“If it works around linder, and mountain folk have linder inside us...maybe linder shapes quarry-speech in the way that cupping your hands around your mouth makes your voice louder. Or maybe quarry-speech travels through linder like sound through air, and the more linder the louder it is. Our memories move through linder, whether in the mountain or in a person.”

″‘You’re the troublemaker.’ he said, and his mouth stank of meat. ‘I’ll see you broken and dead.‘”

″‘Mount Eskel feels the boots of outsiders.’ They paused, and then now even Bena stayed silent for the final line. ‘Mount Eskel won’t bear their weight.‘”

″‘...when I thought you weren’t here after all, I was so disappointed I couldn’t hide it, and I tried to meet all the girls and still make a choice, but I’m afraid I did a poor job of it.’ He glanced at Miri. ‘He did a stunning impression of a stone column,’ said Miri.”

“You are Britta, you survived Olana, Katar, two mountain winters, and a wolf pack of bandits. You might throw up, but you won’t die now.”

When Miri was eight years old, all the other children her age had started to work in the quarry - carrying water, fetching tools, and performing other basic tasks. When she had asked her Pa why she could not, he had taken her in his arms, kissed the top of her head ... he had said, ‘You are never to set foot in the quarry, my flower.‘”