Kate Forsyth Quotes & Sayings

The storyline of a fantasy novel is filled with such a sense of enchantment, beauty and strangeness; it allows the writer to explore the big ontological questions of life that would sound like a sermon in a social realist novel. — Kate Forsyth

The ogres and witches and giants of fairytales stand in as metaphors for those obstacles that we all face in our own lives. — Kate Forsyth

Storytelling is as old as speech. It existed before humans first began to carve shapes in stones and press their hands upon the rocky walls of caves. — Kate Forsyth

By fire, fever, storm and sword, your blood shall suffer this bane. No peace or joy for Wintersloe's lord, till the puzzle ring is whole again — Kate Forsyth

I'm not brave,' Ava replied huskily. 'If you only knew how afraid I really am. Sometimes I think I am afraid of everything.' 'But isn't that what being brave is all about? Being afraid, but doing it anyway? — Kate Forsyth

Sanitising stories, leaching out all of the sense of danger and the darkness out of the stories, actually reduces them and stops them from doing what they're supposed to do, which is teach us how to manage our lives. — Kate Forsyth

Stories are the common ground that allow people to connect, despite all our defences and all our differences. — Kate Forsyth

When our ancestors crouched about the camp fire at night, they told each other tales of gods and heroes, monsters and marvels, to hold back the terrors of the night. Such tales comforted and entertained, diverted and educated those who listened, and helped shape their sense of the world and their place in it. — Kate Forsyth

Many people think fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales are only for children, but I'm not the only writer to take an old tale and retell it for a sophisticated adult audience. — Kate Forsyth

Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell as tory without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadors of the past, who hid their messages in poems, songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose [ ... ]
It was by telling stories that I would save myself. — Kate Forsyth

Once upon a time, I was a little girl sick in the hospital, and my mother gave me a copy of 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' to comfort me. — Kate Forsyth

I had always been a great talker and teller of tales.
'You should put a lock on that tongue of yours. It's long enough and sharp enough to slit your own throat,' our guardian warned me, the night before I left home to go to the royal court at Versailles ... I just laughed. 'Don't you know a woman's tongue is her sword? You wouldn't want me to let my only weapon rust, would you? — Kate Forsyth

One of the biggest mistakes people make is to think that what you need to write a novel is imagination, creativity and a facility with words. Yes, you need all those things, but a novel is a highly complex organism that needs to be dealt with in quite a logical manner. — Kate Forsyth

It has always seemed a cruel joke to me that the very word 'stutter' is difficult for many stutterers to pronounce. It is onomatopoeic, an imitation of the halting, repetitive sound made by people with this speech dysfunction. — Kate Forsyth

Since the moment I could hold a pencil, I have spent nearly all day every day writing. And there is not an age group that I have not written for. You can read me from birth 'til death. — Kate Forsyth

Stories are like that. Like cities, they are built on the stones and bones of the past. — Kate Forsyth

Nothing opens up the mind and the heart like books do, and so they have the power to change the whole world. That's why the are burning books, Ava. To stop us thinking, and feeling, and imagining ... — Kate Forsyth

Can we make promises to each other, as if we were truly married? Can we swear to be true and faithful and love only each other and all those things? Because I'm in such pain, Margherita, I need to have you, I need to know that you're mine. I've been in torment since I first saw you. No, since I first heard you singing from you tower height. Please, mia bella bianca, please let us swear to each other. Love breaks all spells, I know it does. Wear my ring and let me know-"
She stopped his words with her mouth, cupping both hands about his face. Then she sat back to show him the ring on her finger. "I swear it all. Is that good enough? Because I really need you to kiss me again. — Kate Forsyth

Only the lame could love and only the maimed could mourn — Kate Forsyth

I also know that not everyone will like what I do, and that there are many people who do love my work, and so I write for them, and for my own pleasure, and try not to brood too much over those who have different tastes. And I have written enough books now that I know the self-doubt and the anxiety are part of the creative process, and drive me to keep trying to do better, and keep me from becoming too cocksure about my writing, which is a form of creative death. — Kate Forsyth

I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world. — Kate Forsyth

Soeur Seraphina gently removed my lace fontanges. It was named for the King's mistress Angelique de Fontanges, who had lost her hat while hunting one day and had hastily tied up her curls with her garter. The King had admired the effect, and the next day all the court ladies had appeared with their curls tied back with lace — Kate Forsyth

To light a candle is to cast a shadow — Kate Forsyth

Stories are important too. Stories help make sense of things. They make you believe you can do things. They help you imagine that things may be different, that if you just have enough courage ... or faith ... or goodness ... you can change things for the better. — Kate Forsyth

She felt as if she had strayed into a fairy tale, as full of peril as of wonder, a place where anything could happen. — Kate Forsyth

What they do no' understand, they fear, and they hate what makes them afraid, for they think it is a sign o' weakness. — Kate Forsyth

Had she been broken and healed all awry, like a bone that had not been properly set? — Kate Forsyth

Fairytales were never really meant for children; they were meant as cautionary tales for teenagers on the verge of growing up. — Kate Forsyth

If we want a better world, we must never cease to think about what kind of world we want ... and we must not be afraid to do whatever it takes to make the world the way it should be. It is not enough just to talk. We must act! — Kate Forsyth

Hannah Rose Brown was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed. THE PUZZLE RING — Kate Forsyth

Words. I had always loved them. I collected them, like I had collected pretty stones as a child. I liked to roll words over my tongue like a lump of molten honeycomb, savouring the sweetness, the crackle, the crunch. — Kate Forsyth

I wrote my novel 'Bitter Greens' as the creative component of a Doctorate of Creative Arts and am now looking at the history of the Rapunzel tale as my theoretical component. — Kate Forsyth

These things you know." Scarlett shook her head in a mock amazement. "Where do you get all this stuff from " "Books you know the things made from words printed on paper and bound together. Im sure you must have seen one even if you've never opened one " Max said. "Ha ha very funny " Scarlett said. Hannah found she had remembered how to smile. — Kate Forsyth

I have struggled all my life with my stuttering. Not to mention all my other speech impediments. I think I have every language disorder known to speech pathologists. — Kate Forsyth

There's a flame of magic inside every stone & every flower, every bird that sings & every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees & the hills & the river & the rocks, in the sea & the stars & the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars. — Kate Forsyth

We all want to win against all odds. We all want to be loved. We all wish it was possible to change our world and to make our world a better place. — Kate Forsyth

Ava's father believed that myths and fairy tales - like dreams - opened a window into the unconscious. by listening to the language of dreams and old tales, he said, all humans could learn to understand themselves and the world, better. — Kate Forsyth

I love fairy tales because of their haunting beauty and magical strangeness. They are set in worlds where anything can happen. Frogs can be kings, a thicket of brambles can hide a castle where a royal court has lain asleep for a hundred years, a boy can outwit a giant, and a girl can break a curse with nothing but her courage and steadfastness. — Kate Forsyth

Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms - a golden crown, a silver horse, a butterfly caught in amber, a cat's eye shell, a bolt of lightning forged from the heart of a falling star, and the flower of the rue plant, herb of grace. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain of charms was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune. — Kate Forsyth

My writing tools were my most precious belongings. My best quill pen was made from a raven's feather ... I was often so poor that I could not pay my mantua-maker, but I always invested in the best ink and parchment. I smoothed it with pumice stone till it was as white and fine as my own skin, ready to absorb the rapid scratching of my quill — Kate Forsyth

I wish I could paint like Raphael," Lucio said. "I'd paint you! You should smile more often - it's like dawn breaking over a snowfield. — Kate Forsyth

As an adult, I have often been deep in serious conversation with someone I've highly respected and seen them roll an eye as my mouth has mangled yet another magnificently conceived, clumsily articulated sentence. In my mind, the words are mellifluous as honey. In my mouth, they are shards of glass. — Kate Forsyth

The world is a cruel place, Petrosinella, and it wounds the weak. — Kate Forsyth

Seasickness ... is caused ... by the disturbance ... to the inner ear " he said. " You just need ... to ... look ... at ... the horizon ... " His last words disappeared as he vomited violently over the side of the boat. "What's wrong " "Doctor Death is seasick. — Kate Forsyth

She paced her room all day, tossed sleeplessly in her bed all night. At dusk, she sat in her window and poured all her longing and desire into her songs, hoping he would somehow hear her and return.
And he did. — Kate Forsyth

War is an unpredictable beast. Once unleashed, it runs like a rabid dog, ravening friend or foe alike. It can drag on for years, a slow attrition of nerve and fortitude, or be over in one brilliant flash, an extravagant conflagration of flame and blood and waste. — Kate Forsyth

What's wrong with writing about love? Everybody longs for love. — Kate Forsyth

No story was just a story, though. It was a suitcase stuffed with secrets. — Kate Forsyth

And what do you think true love is? her father had asked her. 'Loving even when all hope is gone,' she had answered. — Kate Forsyth

Fairy tales are stories of triumph and transformation and true love, all things I fervently believe in. — Kate Forsyth

May my heart be kind, my mind fierce, and my spirit brave. — Kate Forsyth

As I grew up, I read and loved many fairy-tale retellings and began to think about writing my own reimagining of 'Rapunzel.' — Kate Forsyth

Fairytales work on two levels. On a conscious level, they are stories of true love and triumph and overcoming difficult odds and so are pleasurable to read. But they work on a deeper and symbolic level in that they play out our universal psychological dramas and hidden desires and fears. — Kate Forsyth

I was attacked by a dog when I was a toddler, and my injuries were so bad, I spent quite a bit of my childhood in and out of hospital. Books were absolutely my salvation during those years. — Kate Forsyth

Every word we speak calls on 37 muscles and thousands of nerves. It's not surprising that sometimes these nerves and muscles fail us. — Kate Forsyth

To tell the truth, fairytales have never gone out of style. They have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of tellers. — Kate Forsyth

One reason why so little is known about the German resistance is because it was never a united movement in the way that it was in France or Poland. It was simply too dangerous. — Kate Forsyth

Please we would much rather sail free we mean you no harm I promise " he floated upright in the water frowning then bowed his head in agreement. With a flick of their tails the blue men dived and were gone. "I promise " Hannah breathed. Of course. "That's a hard one to rhyme with. Scarlet Max and Donovan leapt up and down shouting with joy. "I knew you could do it" Scarlet shrieked. "It was just luck " Hannah said "I didn't have time to think. I just said the first thing that came into my mind. I could've said I swear and then he could have said pear or mare or square ... " "That was amazing " Donovan said. "You were so quick" I didn't feel quick " Hannah grinned " I felt as thick as a brick." "O goodness she cant stop " Donovan said laughing. — Kate Forsyth

You cannot write a book unless it is totally inhabiting your imagination and you are totally engrossed with it. Which is a kind word for obsession. — Kate Forsyth

If you are brave of heart, sharp of wit, strong of spirit and steadfast of purpose, there is nothing you cannot achieve — Kate Forsyth