Queer Ducks flock together.

The road was little trafficked, and I was too happy about my escape to feel much fear. I was free of orders.

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.

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

I’d be unnatural if I weren’t enraged. And unnatural if I didn’t act on my rage.” “Perhaps you couldn’t help being angry.” the earl answered, “but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another.

Ogres weren’t dangerous only because of their size and their cruelty. They knew your secrets just by looking at you, and they used their knowledge.

Sun, don’t rise!

The air is fresher here. Rock walls rise on either side of me. They must be the bowl of the volcano.

May the sun smile sweetly. May the rain fall softly. May a breeze ruffle your hair. May your host receive you with charm. May your rest be calm. May you be glad wherever you are.

Good hearts weighed nothing with the queen.

Your mother was beautiful.” His voice was regretful. “I’m sorry she’s dead.

What would I hold on to up there? His great ears? What if I fell and pulled an ear off with me, or grabbed his silver pendant and swung from his neck like a bell clapper? “No, thank you.

I’d anticipated insults before they came. I’d avoided looking in actual mirrors, but I’d gazed constantly in the mirror in my mind and always hated what I showed myself. I looked again in the real mirror in front of me. Dignified. Dignified and grand. I closed my eyes and saw myself again. Milk-white face, blood-red lips. Dignified and grand.

Admat, don’t kill me! Don’t be wrathful. Don’t exist!

I made my way to one of the giant pillows that lined the walls of the dining hall – couches for humans, elves, and gnomes. I would watch the crowd while I dined. The silverware was too big. I looked around to see how others were managing. Some struggled with knives and forks the size of axes and shovels, some stared at their meal in perplexity. And some dug in with bare hands.

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

I assure you, we do not enjoy having so much fun.

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.

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

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

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.

If it had writing, I read it: cereal boxes, ads on the subway, billboards, highway signs.

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

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

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.

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

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

Love shouldn’t be dictated.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me.

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

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.

Everyone dies. You needn’t go on about it so.

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 gathered them on my stomach and waited for sleep. But sleep was busy elsewhere.

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.

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

Food for thought requires a mind with teeth.

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 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?

I love having written. Sometimes I love writing. I love to revise. Revising is my favorite part of writing.

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.

If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don’t like writing them, or if they bore you, skip ’em.

You see, writing down your meanderings gets something started deep in the recesses of your brain. That distant part of your mind knows that you want to write stories or poems or plays and not endless jabber, and it will get to work. It may take a while. You may have to write this stuff for hours or days or weeks, but eventually that subterranean part of your brain will come through and begin to send you ideas.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

I had to share a room with my sister, who is five and a half years older than I am. We didn’t get along well, and I felt that I had no privacy. So books were my privacy, because no one could join me in a book, no one could comment on the action or make fun of it. I used to spend hours reading in the bathroom — and we only had one bathroom in our small apartment!

I’m more interested in plot than theme, but I hope my values find their way into my stories: kindness, sympathy, effort, and humor!

I don’t wait for inspiration. Writing is my job.

I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that. And I meditate, and one time when I was meditating, I started thinking, “Gee Gail, you love stories — you read all the time. How come you never tell yourself a story?” While I should have been saying my mantra to myself, I started telling myself a story. It turned out to be an art appreciation book for kids with reproductions of famous artworks and pencil drawings that I did. I tried to get it published and was rejected wholesale.

I think kids abandon stories all the time. They start stories and get frustrated or get a different, better idea. I think that it is more worthwhile to stick with a story and revise it and try to finish it than abandon ship. Revisions, for any writer, are the name of the game.

When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn’t satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going – till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There’s a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it’s a forbidding looking place.

My favorite of my books is DAVE AT NIGHT, because it’s loosely based on my father’s childhood in an orphanage.

Crying is part of the adventure.

I didn’t write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which were rejected by every children’s book publisher in America. The first book of mine to be accepted for publication was ELLA ENCHANTED, and not one but two publishers wanted it. That day, April 17, 1996, was one of the happiest in my life.

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.

That the book is really good. and there’s a prince in it to.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fate…may…be…thwarted.

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.

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

I shan’t marry a prince!

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

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?

I loved fairy tales as a kid. I’ve always been drawn to fantasy. They’re always exciting. There’s never a dull moment. I just love the embellishments and the magical stuff. It’s such fun to work with and to re-imagine your own way.

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 didn’t think [Ella Enchanted] would get published. Everything I’d written till then had been rejected. If it was published, I thought it might sell a few thousand copies and go out of print. I thought if I was lucky I could write more books and get them published, too. I still pinch myself over the way things have worked out.

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.

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.

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.

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

Do not beat up on yourself. Do not criticize your writing as lousy, inadequate, stupid, or any of the evil epithets that you are used to heaping on yourself. Such self-bashing is never useful. If you indulge in it, your writing doesn’t stand a chance. So when your mind turns on you, turn it back, stamp it down, shut it up, and keep writing.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Kisses were better than potions.

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.

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 music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I’ve trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I’m not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn’t write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.

Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It’s not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It’s misleading because it’s hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it’s not. The more you write, the better you’re going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.

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

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

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.

I never met a word I didn’t love.

You’re Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself.

If I couldn’t sleep, I could read.

Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

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

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

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

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

I want to be with you forever and beyond..

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A library is infinity under a roof.