Rae Carson

“I want to feel the victory of being desired by someone I once found desirable.”

“Speak of evil, and you summon it.”

“You look beautiful," Alodia says. I startle at the compliment. Then I smile. "I’m beautiful to the one person who matters."She nods. "Hector’s mouth is going to drop open when he sees you.”“I hope so. But I meant me. I’m beautiful to me.”

“I'm an atheist and a humanist, so I have no desire to evangelize anyone.”

“I love George R.R. Martin's 'Game of Thrones' series.”

“Later, when we've found this mysterious ship of Hector's and are safely away, when I have time to rest and worry and a quiet corner to hide in, I will coldly remember that being a queen means being strategic. And I will imagine sending off the man I love to marry my sister. I'll rehearse it in my head, maybe. Get used to the feeling.”

“I think sometimes when we find love we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we’re imagining it. Because it is the most painful kind of hope there is.”

“I don't plot with huge detail, just big moments and important elements, and then I have a structure but can fly by the seat of my pants when I write.”

“I'd love to see more middle and high school teachers who are not teaching English develop classroom libraries. Our message to kids should be that reading is for everyone.”

“I worked at a job where 90 percent of my coworkers were Spanish-speaking, and some of them were only Spanish-speaking. My rule was if someone came into the office needing something - I worked in HR at the time - they had to bring a Spanish word to teach me. That was the deal.”

“...alone is such a nebulous state when one is queen.”

“It's important to not marginalize any people group in fiction. A complete, authentic-feeling world should include many different elements of life and culture. For this reason, my books will almost always contain people of faith.”

“Honor from death,” I snap, “is a myth. Invented by the war torn to make sense of the horrific. If we die, it will be so that others may live. Truly honorable death, the only honorable death, is one that enables life.”

“The common thread in all my projects is 'girls being awesome.' Can we make that a genre?”

“I loved and lost and survived.”

“Reading can only take you so far, up to the moment where you must take action with your own hands”

“'Lord of the Rings' was a childhood favorite, though the adult Rae wishes the women in those books had more significance and agency.”

“I must be honest here; I don't think there's such a thing as 'unconventional' when it comes to YA. YA readers are the most open-minded in the literary world. They'll read anything.”

“I dreamed about this as a kid, that I would write - and people would read - a whole series of books. I feel accomplished, giddy, and tired. Mostly, though, I feel thankful. A trilogy is a huge investment on the part of author, publisher, and reader, and I'm grateful that so many people were willing to invest along with me.”

“I've had a love affair with the desert ever since I can remember. No matter what I wrote - contemporary romance, spy thriller, high fantasy - it was going to have a desert in it.”