Gail Carson Levine Quotes & Sayings

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. — Gail Carson Levine

You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?" I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added, " She is happy, I think, She is rich, so she is happy." Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince! " How do you know?" he said. I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind." "Perhaps she's changed," he said. " I don't think so, your Highness. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Love shouldn't be dictated — Gail Carson Levine

I love having written. Sometimes I love writing. I love to revise. Revising is my favorite part of writing. — Gail Carson Levine

Who judges the judge who judges wrong? — Gail Carson Levine

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 — Gail Carson Levine

No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

My contrariness kept Char laughing, and his goodness kept me in love. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

AhthOOn SSyng!" I said. "That's farewell."
"It sounds evil."
"It is," I answered, and we parted. — Gail Carson Levine

My good ideas are shy. But if they see that I treat the stupid ideas with respect, they come forward. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don't like writing them, or if they bore you, skip 'em. — Gail Carson Levine

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? — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I grew up in New York City. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school, my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Queer Ducks flock together. — Gail Carson Levine

Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally. Mother rarely insisted I do anything. Father — Gail Carson Levine

[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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I shan't marry a prince! — Gail Carson Levine

In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I never saw a lad, page or prince, so eager to learn to do a thing right. — Gail Carson Levine

I love you now ... I love you immortally, even if I die and there is nothing left of me. — Gail Carson Levine

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Crying is part of the adventure — Gail Carson Levine

And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

He stopped and took my hand. "If we die, or if I die ... "
He was speaking of dying, and I couldn't stop smiling.
In the dark he must not have noticed, because he said in a rush, "I must tell you that I love you, and if I live I will ask for your hand, but you needn't say anything now if it distresses you, and I might rather die without knowing that you don't love me if that's how you feel."
I tried to speak, but nothing came. I had gained courage during my adventures, but not for this.
"Addie?"
Too soft to hear, I whispered, "I do love you."
But he heard. He cupped his hand under my chin and tilted my face up so I had to meet his eyes. He was smiling too, with a smile as happy as mine. "Oh, Addie!" He leaned down to kiss me ... — Gail Carson Levine

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 — Gail Carson Levine

He is flawless, without a blemish. Majesic ... muscular. — Gail Carson Levine

My interest in the theater led me to my first writing experience as an adult. My husband David wrote the music and lyrics and I wrote the book for a children's musical, 'Spacenapped' that was produced by a neighborhood theater in Brooklyn. — Gail Carson Levine

Food for thought requires a mind with teeth. — Gail Carson Levine

Fate...may...be...thwarted. — Gail Carson Levine

Perhaps you couldn't help being angry... but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Managing to tell a story is very gratifying. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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

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? — Gail Carson Levine

'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School. — Gail Carson Levine

Most of the authors I liked were dead, so it didn't seem like a safe occupation. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

But sleep was busy elsewhere — Gail Carson Levine

I want to be with you forever and beyond... — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Get to know your kids' minds and how they think. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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 — Gail Carson Levine

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

I make mistakes on a very grand scale. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

He -it- was a specter! I stepped back, stunned. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Luck was with me. I saw no spiders.
Luck was against me. I saw no specters. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I was excited to make my own 'Neverland.' — Gail Carson Levine

I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don't overlook. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

If a big person invests time in reading, kids learn reading is important, the child is important, words are important, stories are important. — Gail Carson Levine

I never met a word I didn't love — Gail Carson Levine

He bowed. 'The young lady must not dance alone. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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? — Gail Carson Levine

You're Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I don't wait for inspiration. Writing is my job. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Things change, people change, but that doesn't mean you should forget the past. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

Ideas sometimes come from nowhere, and sometimes they take lots of thinking. — Gail Carson Levine

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. — Gail Carson Levine

I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too — Gail Carson Levine

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! — Gail Carson Levine

A library is infinity under a roof. — Gail Carson Levine