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.
Fairies had faults, but they were perfectly themselves. Vidia, for instance, who was the fastest flier, didn't care about anybody but herself. She was by no means perfect, but she was perfectly Vidia. Fairies were concentrated, like bouillon cubes.
I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don't overlook.
Queer Ducks flock together.
After two stories, I blew out my light. The night was clear. My ceiling was the sky and an eyelash of the moon. By shifting from side to side, I made my hammock swing me into sleep.
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.
Most of my job life has had to do with welfare, first helping people find work and then as an administrator. The earlier experience was more direct and satisfying, and I enjoy thinking that a bunch of people somewhere are doing better today than they might have done if not for me.
Food for thought requires a mind with teeth.
Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally.
I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.
Managing to tell a story is very gratifying.
I have a very vivid memory of the way my parents spoke, and the 50's that I grew up in are closer to the 20's, I think, than today in many, many ways.
I wished I could spend the rest of my life... being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.
Love shouldn't be dictated.
Lantern-shine, dim but kind— No starkness in darkness— Even I please the eye. Outside, wind and rain, Weather's fitful wax and wane. Tomorrow's sun will reveal What night conceals. All we lack, regret, know, Forgotten in lamp-oil glow.
Foolishness may have golden offspring. I hope yours does.
Sometimes the kids come up with better endings than the real story.
I want to be with you forever and beyond...
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.
Your mother was beautiful. His voice was regretful. I'm sorry she's dead.
I'd never before been infatuated with someone living, someone real.
I didn't want to be a writer. First I wanted to act, and then I wanted to be a painter like my big sister.
There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over.
I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too.
As a child, I loved fairy tales because the story, the what-comes-next, is paramount. As an adult, I'm fascinated by their logic and illogic.
Most of the authors I liked were dead, so it didn't seem like a safe occupation.
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?
We don't do big magic. Lucinda's the only one. It's too dangerous.
I loved fairy tales as a kid, so that's where my mind gravitates.
'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.
It feels presumptuous to think of writing for adults.
Fairy blood does not make you clumsy. That's human.
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.
Sun, don't rise!
But sleep was busy elsewhere.
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.
Things change, people change, but that doesn't mean you should forget the past.
I decided to draw her doing something, because she always was.
Encourage children to write their own stories, and then don't rain on their parade. Don't say, 'That's not true.' Applaud flights of fantasy. Help with spelling and grammar, but stand up and cheer the use of imagination.
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.
In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.
My good ideas are shy. But if they see that I treat the stupid ideas with respect, they come forward.
I was born singing. Most babies cry, I sang an aria.
No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.
Sorcerers believe that an action taken for the right reasons has an unreasonable chance of success.
While the outside world was full of danger, I knew my interior. I was certain that I could oust an intruder there.
I found that I was much more interested in writing and that I didn't like the illustrating at all. I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process.
Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day.
Everyone else reached the Shores of Sleep, but I remained oceans away.
