Shannon Hale Quotes

Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep her Happily Ever After.

~ Shannon Hale

You don't need luck. You are powerful, clever, and fearless.

~ Shannon Hale

Courage is feeling justly afraid and yet still doing what is right.

~ Shannon Hale

Courage is not fearlessness.

~ Shannon Hale

Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be.

~ Shannon Hale

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 your mind. And for a moment both worlds are true, and you cannot quite tell them apart.

~ Shannon Hale

Miri took genuine comfort in studying Mathematics that day. She could sort numbers into two simple ideas: true and not true. Unlike numbers, words were rarely just one thing. They moved and changed, camouflaging and leaping out unexpectedly. Words were slippery and alive; words wrestled out of her grip and became something new. Words were dangerous.

~ Shannon Hale

That year, when the trees burned the fire of late summer into their leaves and the ground mist was a ghost of the river, long and wet and cold, the aunt looked from her windows to the walls around her and imagined another winter inside them. She began to see the world as a bird sees bars, and she scratched her arms beneath her sleeves.

~ Shannon Hale

...even if things were broken right now. Sometimes it was the cracks that let the light in.

~ Shannon Hale

Life feels like fall of itself.”“'A dream within a dream.”“And I want to wake up.

~ Shannon Hale

Life feels like fall of itself.'A dream within a dream.And I want to wake up.

~ Shannon Hale

Maybe I got a few words wrong, but that's so near how the conversation went, I'm going to call it truth.

~ Shannon Hale

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.

~ Shannon Hale

A cat can make you feel well rested when you're tired or turn a rage into a calm just by sitting on your lap. His very nearness is a healing song.

~ Shannon Hale

If it had been a color, it might have been green. If it had touched her ears, it might have sounded rhythmic, like the creak of a rocking chair or drone of a bee. If it had a scent, it might have been sweet and drowsy, like fresh pine on the fire.

~ Shannon Hale

Rin thought of the crossbow bolt. Of the whoosh and sting of wind and fire heat and the man who would have killed her. Of pushing in front of Enna. Of almost dying. Of home and Ma and being farther away than the lands in tales, and maybe never going home. Of standing by a strange tree in a faraway wood with girls who spoke the language of fire. Of a queen of Kel who wanted them dead.

~ Shannon Hale

...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 hadn’t any plans on sharing our bed.

~ Shannon Hale

I’m sorry, my lady,” said Geric, rubbing his arm. “But I failed to force an apology out of the offending goose.

~ Shannon Hale

He had a dashing smile. It nearly dashed right off his face.

~ Shannon Hale

Briar stood, pushing up her sleeves. 'It's about to get all nonfiction in here'.

~ Shannon Hale

Ani saw herself clearly in that moment, as a face in darkness gains sudden dimensions in a flash of lightning - a young girl, a silly thing, a lapdog, a broken mare.

~ Shannon Hale

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 day.

~ Shannon Hale

I think sometimes, being silent and watching, can change a person.

~ Shannon Hale

We were quiet, two tiny specks glued down by gravity, peering at a universe that didn't notice us back.

~ Shannon Hale

Sometimes it seems my identity’s a matter of opinion

~ Shannon Hale

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.

~ Shannon Hale

I didn't raise you I be good and weak. I raised you to be powerful and happy.

~ Shannon Hale

Don't let the inconsequential fairy tales stand in your way! You do what makes you happy, no matter what.

~ Shannon Hale

The first building she reached appeared to be an old barn. Only one young guard stood before its bolted door, staring at her with wide eyes, holding up his sword in defense, She heated his sword and he dropped it, his expression barely changing, as if he had been expecting that. She held up her two swords to his throat, but they were two heavy, so she dropped one and held the other with both hands. Where are the two Bayern boys kept? The soldier shook his head. BURN HIM, prompted the fire. The excitement of burning was simmering in her, heating her up for more action.

~ Shannon Hale

All I've ever wanted was to be near you.

~ Shannon Hale

I know I would crumble if I lost you.

~ Shannon Hale

The woman gestured to a seat and put on a patient face. An impatient sort of patient face, like an impatient face dressing up as a patient one for Halloween.

~ Shannon Hale

To be powerful, a kiss should make a journey, be its own story--begin with hesitation, move to realization, then melt into bliss.

~ Shannon Hale

..giving into despair was like eating poisonous berries to keep from feeling hungry.

~ Shannon Hale

I'd thought I wanted to live free of my mundane little cage, but the world outside was feeling more and more hazardous.

~ Shannon Hale

But Princess Magnolia wore glass slippers on weekdays. Princess Magnolia was afraid of snails. Sunlight made Princess Magnolia sneeze. And at the moment, the Princess in Black was hog-tying a monster.

~ Shannon Hale

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 beauty, entire a hive of handsomeness, find ourselves awash in an ocean of attractiveness, drowning in a miasma of hotness.

~ Shannon Hale

Hey, times are tough, and thirty gold coins can do a lot of good. But I guess you wouldn't know about needing money, since you grew up like a little princ...(Rapunzel glares)Prin... soner. I mean, prisoner! A prisoner in a tower, such a shame, that.

~ Shannon Hale

Most people are genuinely good, sweetheart, and even the evil ones have some good in them. -Shannon Hale

~ Shannon Hale

I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.

~ Shannon Hale