Shannon Hale quotes

But, how do you know if an ending is truly good for the characters unless you've traveled with them through every page?
-- Shannon Hale

#Character #Pages

Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.
-- Shannon Hale

#Wisdom #Soul #Mama

Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.
-- Shannon Hale

#Writing #Firsts #Castles

You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.
-- Shannon Hale

#Freedom #Butterfly #Refuse

Even the jerks earn some of our affection. We can be glad they're gone and yet still mourn the good parts.
-- Shannon Hale

#Divorce #Heartfelt #Gone

I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself.
-- Shannon Hale

#Thinking #Laughing #Way

I do like the world quite a lot.
-- Shannon Hale

#World

The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.
-- Shannon Hale

#Smart #Struggle #Book

Being a writer is a good, good thing.
-- Shannon Hale

#Good Things

I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something that keeps us down.
-- Shannon Hale

#Stars #Thinking #Wings

You, what are you? The brat of lucky parents who were related to a childless king. There is no such thing as royal blood. I believe we are what we make ourselves, and as such, you, Crown Princess, are nothing.
-- Shannon Hale

#Kings #Princess #Believe

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little
-- Shannon Hale

#Careers #Want #Littles

... If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it.
-- Shannon Hale

#Believe #Stories #Strange

I know I would crumble if I lost you.
-- Shannon Hale

#Romantic #Lost

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

#Romantic #Wanted

Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her.
-- Shannon Hale

#Inspirational #Solitude #Students

For Colin Firth: You're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.
-- Shannon Hale

#Thinking #Guy #Married

A little snark, properly directed, can change the world.
-- Shannon Hale

#World #Littles #Changing The World

I, Geric-Sinath of Gerhard, declare that you're beautiful and you're perfect and I'll slay any man who tries to take you from my side. Goose girl, may I kiss you?
-- Shannon Hale

#Beautiful #Girl #Kissing

The book smelled dusty and old but also carried a sweet tang, a hint of something inviting. She opened to the first page and started to read, pronouncing the words in a reverent whisper.
-- Shannon Hale

#Sweet #Book #Pages

Her smile was peculiar - it made her nose wrinkle, not as though she smelled something unpleasant, but more that she was so amused, her whole face wanted to be a part of the smile.
-- Shannon Hale

#Wrinkles #Noses #Faces

And new, too. Remade. Ready to move again. Listening was the start, she decided. Doing was the next step.
-- Shannon Hale

#Moving #Listening #Next

I was under the stars, like a fish is under water.
-- Shannon Hale

#Stars #Water #Fishes

What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was. It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.
-- Shannon Hale

#Sky #Long #Green

How could you miss it? Just the sound of her voice makes my chest feel tight, my face gets hot and my mouth goes dry whenever she's near. It's getting so bad, all I have to do is see her and I'm already thinking, 'What does she want? What can I do for her?' She's got some power over me, there's no question, and what else could it be? ~Razo
-- Shannon Hale

#Thinking #Voice #Missing

I know they are naught things, but I devour novels.” (p. 57).
-- Shannon Hale

#Novel

Make haste” Jane added, just because she always wanted to say that.
-- Shannon Hale

#Haste #Wanted

I'm not hopeless, that's the problem. I'm too hopeful, if anything ... I'm so thick-headed it's taken me this long to give up on men, but I can't give up completely, you know? So I ... I channel all my hope into an idea, to someone who can't reject me because he isn't real!
-- Shannon Hale

#Giving Up #Real #Taken

... fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.
-- Shannon Hale

#Real #Practice #Opiates

Finn leaped from his horse to greet Enna, and she entwined herself into him, their arms around each other, their faces close. Thoug they did not kiss, Rin thought that the way they looked at each other was even more intimate. 'Let's get married,' Enna was saying with yearning in her voice. 'Please, let's get married right now.' Finn put his face into her neck and whispered something that made her hum.
-- Shannon Hale

#Horse #Kissing #Voice

Does anyone smell roasting meat?' said Razo, 'Oh, wait, it's just Geric's face.
-- Shannon Hale

#Smell #Waiting #Faces

I'm going to find whoever is responsible for me sleeping out side with outside without pillows and kick them in the shins!-Enna
-- Shannon Hale

#Sleep #Sides #Responsible

Enna leaned back her head and laughed at the sky. 'Of course he wasn't! Who could kill Razo?
-- Shannon Hale

#Sky

Oh, but I like my geese. Like cats, they can't be told what to do, and like dogs, they're loyal, and like people, they talk every chance they get.
-- Shannon Hale

#Dog #Cat #People

I am not sure I am ready to know what I think about that, so I dare not write it out.
-- Shannon Hale

#Writing #Thinking #Dare

It doesn't seem to matter what we think...The prince will come up here and look at us as if we're barrels in a trader's wagon. And if I'm salt pork and he doesn't care for salt pork, then there's nothing I can do.
-- Shannon Hale

#Thinking #Looks #Care

Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don't make sense.
-- Shannon Hale

#Wind #Faces #Make Sense

Look no farther than your hand, Make a choice and take a stand.
-- Shannon Hale

#Hands #Choices #Looks

She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby's neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.
-- Shannon Hale

#Baby #Dark #Wrinkles

Rin slept inside the oak’s thought. Its own memories of weather and growth continued to hum, and like a pond, its stillness reflected back herself.
-- Shannon Hale

#Memories #Weather #Growth

Ani felt a stirring, a hope, a winged thing waking up in her chest and brushing her heart with it's feathers.
-- Shannon Hale

#Heart #Wake Up #Waking

...'Goose girl, may I kiss you?' She answered by... kissing him first.
-- Shannon Hale

#Girl #Kissing #May

How I keep trying to force our story into a fairy tale, but from the beginning, it's been more like a nursery rhyme." "Bizarre and adorable?" "Just like you." "With rings in your pockets and bells on your toes" "Ooh, I should really invest in some toes bells.
-- Shannon Hale

#Nurse #Adorable #Trying

You're from where?" "Lay'en. It's near Salt Lake City." "Spell that for me." "Um, that would be S-A-L-T-" "No, the other one. The city you're from." "Oh. L-A-Y-T-O-N." "Ah-Lay-ton." That's what I said." "No you didn't. You just said, 'Lay'en.'" "So I did. But just go ahead and pronounce 'aluminum' for me, Mr. British Man. How are you going to defend that piece of insanity? Why don't you spell it and count syllables and see if your al-um-in-ium makes sense whatsoever?" He bowed his head. "Touché...
-- Shannon Hale

#Men #Cities #Lakes

Her nightmare clung to her like the smell of smoke to cloth.
-- Shannon Hale

#Smell #Nightmare

...Speaking of, I've been playing with the letters - Lovers In a Very Enlightened Regard." "LIVER. Good one." "Also, how about Life Invasion Via Exceptional Respect?" "Life Invasion. Like it." "Or Lovelike Intensity Via Emotional Rapport." "Doesn't that spell OLIVER?
-- Shannon Hale

#Emotional #Letters #Invasion

She answered by standing and kissing him first and held his cheeks and closed her eyes and felt sure as bones and deep as blood that she had found her place.
-- Shannon Hale

#Eye #Kissing #Blood

Over there!" "Where?" Enna asked in mock panic "Do you see something?
-- Shannon Hale

#Panic

He looked at her, and the clarity of his dark eyes struck her heart with a sensation of a wound touched.
-- Shannon Hale

#Eye #Heart #Dark

A heart is a heart in a child or a man.
-- Shannon Hale

#Children #Heart #Men

I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.
-- Shannon Hale

#Hurt #Alive #Body

If you were a woman, all I'd have to say is 'Colin Firth in a wet shirt' and you'd say 'Ah.
-- Shannon Hale

#Shirts

Ani told them all...telling more than needed telling, the stories clarifying and unifying themselves in her mind as she let them spill out of her mouth.
-- Shannon Hale

#Mind #Mouths #Stories

As a general rule, writing is very inconvenient.
-- Shannon Hale

#Writing

Some people are born with the first word of a language resting on their tongue though it may take some time before they can taste it.
-- Shannon Hale

#People #May #Taste

Miss Hayes, have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? That in fact you are my fantasy?
-- Shannon Hale

#Missing #Facts #Might

Why was the judgement of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?
-- Shannon Hale

#People #Judgement #Opinion

Don't beat yourself up," said Charlotte. "True love can be so easily mistaken for other things-friendship, humane concern, indigestion...
-- Shannon Hale

#Said #Beats #Concern

Life is short, so live extra lives. Read books.
-- Shannon Hale

#Book #Life Is Short #Life Is

You can be who you will,” he repeated. His voice softened. “And if you will have me, I will be the one beside you.
-- Shannon Hale

#Voice

Words can fall hard like a boulder loosed from a cliff. Words can drift unnoticed like a weed seed on a breeze. Words can sing.
-- Shannon Hale

#Weed #Fall #Cliffs

You forgot to cough!” he said. “Sorry.” She coughed. “Your sneakiness is dangerous. Next time that chisel will lodge itself in my head.” “Now, Peder, there’s plenty of stone around here for carving. No need to practice on your own face.” He stroked his chin. “You’re right, my jaw is already chiseled to perfection.” She agreed, but she felt too silly to say so aloud.
-- Shannon Hale

#Sorry #Silly #Practice

I’ve always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There’s no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word.
-- Shannon Hale

#Book #Doe #Prejudice

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

#Spring #Night #Light

Oh land of farms and green hills mild Once formed by giants rough and wild With massive paws they gripped and tore With one great rip they formed the shore Where heavy boots left prints so deep Blue lakes remain 'tween summits steep The giants fought beneath our skies And from their bones our mountains rise
-- Shannon Hale

#Rip #Blue #Land

The army slew a thousand and showed little pity The king ordered fealty from the conquered city The prince charmed its people with words wise and witty And the queen sat on a couch, looking very pretty
-- Shannon Hale

#Wise #Witty #Kings

She wore white heirloom lace about her throat And in her hair a bright golden feather A pearl like a plum hung ripe from her neck But her smile fetched ten gold together
-- Shannon Hale

#White #Hair #Together

Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.
-- Shannon Hale

#Too Late #Might #Second Thoughts

My ma says a rock lasts forever, but people don’t, and that’s what makes them more precious.
-- Shannon Hale

#Rocks #People #Forever

Your head will be fine,” said Miri. “It’s your neck you should worry about.
-- Shannon Hale

#Worry #Necks #Fine

Here's the thing about home: you can create it most anywhere, as long as you gather your people around you.
-- Shannon Hale

#Home #People #Long

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

#Patience #Halloween #Dressing Up

He nodded. "And if I don't make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don't deserve to be near you.
-- Shannon Hale

#Beautiful #World #Feels

If you're listening Big Brother, I refuse to be Fanny Price.
-- Shannon Hale

#Brother #Listening #Bigs

I need to admit up front that I don't know how to have a fling. I'm not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I'm throwing myself at your feet because I'm hoping for a shot at forever." Henry Jenkins/Mr. Nobley
-- Shannon Hale

#Bye #Feet #Forever