Gail Carson Levine Quotes

A library is infinity under a roof.

In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.

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.

Step follows step, Hope follows Courage, Set your face towards danger, Set your heart on victory.

I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.

It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after.

That's funny, you're funny. I like you, I'm quite taken by you.

When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you

I want to be with you forever and beyond...

I was born singing. Most babies cry, I sang an aria.

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don't overlook.

Things change, people change, but that doesn't mean you should forget the past.

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.

If I couldn't sleep, I could read.

Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

You're Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself

Drualt took Freya's warm hand, Her strong hand, Her sword hand, And pressed it to his lips, Pressed it to his heart. Come with me,' he said. Come with me to battle, My love. Tarry at my side. Stay with me When battle is done. Tarry at my side. Laugh with me, And walk with me The long, long way. Tarry with me, My love, at my side.

Hush Hattie!" I said, intoxicated with my success. "I don't want to go to my room. Everyone must know I shan't marry the prince." I ran to the door to our street, opened it, and called out into the night, "I shan't marry the prince." I turned back into the hall and ran to Char and threw my arms about his neck. "I shan't marry you." I kissed his cheek. He was safe from me.

I never met a word I didn't love

She asks why I like her. Might as well ask Why I breathe. Maybe tomorrow I won't Breathe or like her Anymore. Maybe tomorrow the tides Will stop. Maybe tomorrow will bring No more rainbows. Maybe tomorrow She will stop Asking useless questions.

No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.

Fate...may...be...thwarted.

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.

The Writer's Oath I promise solemnly: 1. to write as often and as much as I can, 2. to respect my writing self, and 3. to nurture the writing of others. I accept these responsibilities and shall honor them always.

Luck was with me. I saw no spiders. Luck was against me. I saw no specters.

I was no hero. The dearest wishes of my heart were for safety and tranquility. The world was a perilous place, wrong for the likes of me.

I shan't marry a prince!

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?

Although we didn't invite Lucinda, she arrived anyway-with a gift. "No need," Char and I chimed together. "Remember when you were a squirrel," Mandy said.

Oak, granite, Lilies by the road, Remember me? I remember you. Clouds brushing Clover hills, Remember me? Sister, child, Grown tall, Remember me? I remember you.

He is flawless, without a blemish. Majesic . . . muscular.

Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

I put my fingers around the unmarked ring of the spyglass and twisted. The scene became clear. Oh no! A hairy brown spider clung to a vine! I couldn't go there! I'd go to the desert to find a dragon. I began to reset the spyglass, but then I stopped myself. A spider was worse than a dragon? No. My first monsters would be spiders, then.

That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. "My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child." I stopped.

Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day.

He loved me. He'd loved me as long as he he'd known me! I hadn't loved him as long perhaps, but now I loved him equally well, or better. I loved his laugh, his handwriting, his steady gaze, his honorableness, his freckles, his appreciation of my jokes, his hands, his determination that I should know the worst of him. And, most of all, shameful though it might be, I loved his love for me.

Crying is part of the adventure

Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy...it takes a mean author to write a good story.

To me, merely and pretty were words that had nothing to do with each other. Pretty went with miraculously, and merely belonged in another paragraph entirely.

Food for thought requires a mind with teeth.

Voices and faces aren't manifestations of good or bad.

I wished I could spend the rest of my life... being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.

Father asks frequently in his letters whether I fancy any Ayorthaian young lady or any in our acquaintance at home. I say no I suppose I'm confessing another fault: pride. I don't want him to know that I love if my affections are not returned

He -it- was a specter! I stepped back, stunned.

Kisses were better than potions.

Perhaps we can come here together someday. By the way, you're a month older than the last time I saw you. Are you still too young to marry.

He bowed. 'The young lady must not dance alone.

To pretend I was sliding down the stair rail." He laughed again. " You should have done it. I would have caught you at the bottom.

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.

I wonder how Admat can be everywhere. Is he in my sandal? Or is he my sandal itself? Why would a god bother to be a sandal? Does he wear shoes or sandals himself, invisible ones?

Queer Ducks flock together.

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.

No one is here," Char said. "You need resist temptation no longer." "Only if you slide too." "I'll go first so I can catch you at the bottom." He flew down so incautiously that I suspected him of years of practice in his own castle. It was my turn. The ride was a dream, longer and steeper than the rail at home. The hall rose to meet me, and Char was there. He caught me and spun me around.

But what I really long to know you do not tell either: what you feel, although I've given you hints by the score of my regard. You like me. You wouldn't waste time or paper on a being you didn't like. But I think I've loved you since we met at your mother's funeral. I want to be with you forever and beyond, but you write that you are too young to marry or too old or too short or too hungry---until I crumple your letters up in despair, only to smooth them out again for a twelfth reading, hunting for hidden meanings.

My contrariness kept Char laughing, and his goodness kept me in love.

Darling, everyone is beautiful in her own way, and I am a fairy.

Everyone called it losing Mother, but she wasn’t lost. She was gone, and no matter where I went — another town, another country, Fairyland, or Gnome Caverns — I wouldn’t find her

I know all about you," Char announced after we'd taken a few more steps. "You do? How could you?" "Your cook and our cook meet at the market. She talks about you." He looked sideways at me. "Do you know much about me?

Who judges the judge who judges wrong? The sentence too weak, The sentence too strong. The penance too quick, The penance too long. Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

that the book is really good. and theres a prince in it to.

He stopped and took my hand. "If we die, or if I die..." He was speaking of dying, and I couldn't stop smiling. In the dark he must not have noticed, because he said in a rush, "I must tell you that I love you, and if I live I will ask for your hand, but you needn't say anything now if it distresses you, and I might rather die without knowing that you don't love me if that's how you feel." I tried to speak, but nothing came. I had gained courage during my adventures, but not for this. "Addie?" Too soft to hear, I whispered, "I do love you." But he heard. He cupped his hand under my chin and tilted my face up so I had to meet his eyes. He was smiling too, with a smile as happy as mine. "Oh, Addie!" He leaned down to kiss me...

Love shouldn't be dictated

ahthOOn SSyng!" I said. "That's farewell." "It sounds evil." "It is," I answered, and we parted.

I rode all day. I cried all night. The moon didn’t glow. The sun didn’t rise. A comet blazed Between my eyes. West and South, Wind and rain. Every way is Just the same. Pray give me a box To hide inside. Pray give me a spade To dig my own grave.

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.

The fast fliers are not disgraced." Queen Ree reached up for the missing tiara. "She saved us, but she's with him now." Vidia was complicated, two fairies in one, a loyal traitor.

Char saw me. Over the shoulder of his partner, he mouthed, "Wait for me." I grew roots. An earthquake could not have moved me. The clock struck a quarter before eleven. If it had struck the end of the world, I'd have stayed as I was.

No sign of pleasure greeted the announcement. The mood in the hall was leaden. My mood was livelier. Fright is livelier than lead.

Everyone else reached the Shores of Sleep, but I remained oceans away.

Perhaps you couldn't help being angry... but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another.

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

But my last conscious thought was an image of Prince Char when he'd caught the bridle of Sir Stephan's horse. His face had been close to mine. Two curls had spilled onto his forehead. A few freckles dusted his nose, and his eyes said he was sorry for me to go.

I decided to draw her doing something, because she always was.

Instead of making me docile, Lucinda’s curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally.

Fairy blood does not make you clumsy. That’s human.

I became simply a pair of eyes, staring through my mask at Char. I needed no ears because I was too far off to hear his voice, no words because I was too distant for speech, and no thoughts - those I saved for later. He bent his head. I loved the hairs on the nape of his neck. He moved his lips. I admired their changing shape. He clasped his hand. I blessed his fingers. Once, the power of my gaze drew his eyes...

I love you now... I love you immortally, even if I die and there is nothing left of me.

We promised to be kind to each other, to be patient, to forgive each other’s faults, to be steadfast and true, and to keep joy in our love.

I write fiction for lots of reasons. One is power. I'm in charge when I write. So are you. You create the world of the story. You make the rules.

But sleep was busy elsewhere

Rapid movement was a relief in the midst of so much feeling.

…while the outside world was full of danger, I knew my interior. I was certain that I could oust an intruder there.

I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too

... He was only a person on the outside and... his insides were ashes mixed with coins and a brain.

Amor (qué placer escribir esta palabra), amor, amor...

I’d never before been infatuated with someone living, someone real.

My grandmother warned that too much reading would ruin my eyesight, but I couldn’t hear her over the chatter of characters.

curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally. Mother rarely insisted I do anything. Father

I saw the other loners the way everyone else did-as unappealing, as to be avoided at all costs. If I hung out with one of them, I thought, my unpopular status would get worse, not better, because it would be magnified by association.

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

Except for the hydra in her swamp and the baby dragon, the exotics—the unicorn, the herd of centaurs, and the gryphon family—lived on an island meadow surrounded by an extension of the castle moat.

Albin stood to the side a few feet and blew his nose with a honk. He could blow his nose a dozen ways. A honk was the saddest.

You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?" I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added, " She is happy, I think, She is rich, so she is happy." Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince! " How do you know?" he said. I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind." "Perhaps she's changed," he said. " I don't think so, your Highness.

when he heard you were at finishing school, he was indignant. He demanded to know why you needed to be finished since there was nothing wrong with you to start with. I couldn’t answer him because I’d like to ask that father of yours the same question.

I can see that. She is lovely, very different from you. Oh, my clumsy tongue." Vollys's bells clanged. "You are lovely too, but in a quieter way. In temperament I see that you are different as well. She could lead a charge, but you could last a siege. This is fascinating, little Adelina. The more I look at her, the more clearly I see you. You may be a worthier opponent than even my Willard was.

The inn's guests were sometimes friendly, but more often they were rude. As bad as the ones who stared were the ones who looked away in embarrassment. Some guests didn't want me to serve their food, and some didn't want me to clean their rooms. We Ayorthians are sensitive to beauty, more sensitive than the subjects in other kingdoms, I think. We love a fine voice especially, but we also admire a rosy sunset, a sweet scent, a fetching face. And when we're not pleased, we're displeased. I developed the habit of holding my hand in front of my face when guests arrived, a foolish practice, because it raised curiosity and concealed little.

I can never stop thanking you. If I never stop, I never need to say farewell. A river rushes between us. You follow it north, I pursue it south. When I weep because I miss you, my tears will seep through your cavern. Your face is kind as a shawl in winter, or a diamond for a song. My family keeps an inn. You have a chamber in my heart. No rent is due. Farewell. Farewell.

We don’t do big magic. Lucinda’s the only one. It’s too dangerous.” “What’s dangerous about ending a storm?” “Maybe nothing, maybe something. Use your imagination.” “Clear skies would be good. People could go outside.” “Use your imagination,” Mandy repeated. I thought. “The grass needs rain. The crops need rain.” “More,” Mandy said. “Maybe a bandit was going to rob someone, and he isn’t doing it because of the weather.” “That’s right. Or maybe I’d start a drought, and then I’d have to fix that because I started it. And then maybe the rain I sent would knock down a branch and smash in the roof of a house, and I’d have to fix that too.” “That wouldn’t be your fault. The owners should have built a stronger roof.” “Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe I’d cause a flood and people would be killed. That’s the problem with big magic. I only do little magic