Shannon Hale Quotes (45 Quotes)

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.

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?

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.

If we're mad, we're mad in large numbers, at least larger than yours.

There you go...let it all slide out. Unhappiness can't stick in a person's soul when it's slick with tears.

Its important to know stories. I felt the earth shift to make a place for you when you were born, and I came to tell you stories while you are young. And like me, you were born with a word on your tongue.

But the hoping, that's what really hurts.

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

No more crying. It's all wetness and no comfort at all.

Careful with the accusations of insanity, oh my lady whose home is a tower with windows of brick, all for the sake of some skinny-ankled, laugh-prone boy of a khan.

Truth is when your mind and your gut agree.

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.

I do like the world quite a lot.

What should I say? That I like him so much it hurts?

Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming...I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.

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.

Ah, now, don't cry over lost years and forgetfulness. The tales tell what they can. The rest is for us to learn..

Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

She closed the book and put her cheek against it. There was still an odor of a library on it, of dust, leather, binding glue, and old paper, one book carrying the smell of hundreds.

Smell is the voice of the soul...

But in a country where you hang your dead up on walls and pride whether or not a man bears a javelin more than his character, how am I to persuade you out of a war? It would be suicide for Kildenree to war on Bayern and butchery for Bayern to attack Kildenree. If you don't believe me, then send me back. Or if you don't trust me to leave, I'll return to my little room on the west wall and tend your geese, and you can be sure that on my watch no thieves will touch my flock.

She was born Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she did not open her eyes for three days.

There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate.

But when she turned her back to the lights, she saw that the night was so dark...She could not see the stars. The world felt as high as the depthless night sky and deeper than she could know. She understood, suddenly and keenly, that she was too small to run away, and she sat on the damp ground and cried.

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.

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.

Clearly she was expected to say something, but panic at having to speak stole the thoughts from her head.

They finished laughing and caught their breaths, and looked at each other, and Ani thought Geric looked at her too long, as though he forgot he was looking, as though he did not wish to do anything else. She looked back. Her took heart took its time quieting down.

This morning, Tegus welcomed me again with an arm clasp and cheek touch. I wasn't startled this time, and I breathed in at his neck. How can I describe the scent of his skin? He smells something like cinnamon-- brown and dry and sweet and warm. Ancestors, is it wrong for me to imagine laying my head on his chest and closing my eyes and breathing in his smell?

Go on, son, you're not doing me any good by bleeding.

We know it's all just daydreaming. In all likelihood, no one in this forest'll ever get a javelin, and I'll never see my mother's kingdom again, let alone be hailed by crowds as the jewel of Kildenree. Maybe it's vain to wish for it. But sometimes, it'd be nice just to hold something real in your hands that felt like a measure of your worth. Right Finn?

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

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

When you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful.

You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.

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

Years ago, before this estate was generously and unwillingly turned over to the crown, the lord here was a genuine dimwit. He had a minister stashed behind his throne to whisper clever things to say.

He did a very good impression of a stone column.

I can see that one can never pay back Gilsa for the fear that she will give again.

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.