Gail Carson Levine

“Do you like to slide?" His voice was eager.Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights.""Oh." His polite tone had returned."I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction."He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him."Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller.”

“I loved fairy tales as a kid, so that's where my mind gravitates.”

“She asks why I like her.Might as well askWhy I breathe.Maybe tomorrow I won'tBreathe or like herAnymore.Maybe tomorrow the tidesWill stop.Maybe tomorrow will bringNo more rainbows.Maybe tomorrowShe will stopAsking useless questions.”

“In that moment I found a power beyond any I'd had before, a will and a determination I would never have need if not for Lucinda, a fortitude I hadn't been able to find for a lesser cause.”

“I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer, particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that.”

“When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.”

“There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.”

“Ideas sometimes come from nowhere, and sometimes they take lots of thinking.”

“I'm solitary as a pulled tooth,Lonely as an unwelcome truth, Lost as a minnow out of school, A genius in a crop of fools.”

“He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once.”

“My good ideas are shy. But if they see that I treat the stupid ideas with respect, they come forward.”

“Sorcerers believe that an action taken for the right reasons has an unreasonable chance of success.”

“Kisses were better than potions.”

“I had been able to break the curse myself. I'd had to have reason enough, love enough to do it, to find the will and the strength.”

“Love shouldn't be dictated”

“I grew up in New York City. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school, my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry.”

“Managing to tell a story is very gratifying.”

“I never met a word I didn't love”

“Would you favor me with a dance?" Over all the others I was his choice! I curtsied, and he took my hand. Our hands knew each other. Char looked at me, startled. "Have we met before, Lady?”

“I make mistakes on a very grand scale.”