Top 100 Gail Carson Levine Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me.”

— Gail Carson Levine

52. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

53. “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

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

— Gail Carson Levine

55. “Crying is part of the adventure.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

57. “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

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

— Gail Carson Levine

59. “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

60. “Love shouldn’t be dictated.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

62. “Luck was with me. I saw no spiders. Luck was against me. I saw no specters.”

— Gail Carson Levine

63. “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

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

— Gail Carson Levine

65. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

66. “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

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

— Gail Carson Levine

68. “But sleep was busy elsewhere.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

70. “Instead of making me docile, Lucinda’s curse made a rebel of me.”

— Gail Carson Levine

71. “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

72. “Who judges the judge who judges wrong? The sentence too weak, The sentence too strong. The penance too quick, The penance too long. Who judges the judge who judges wrong?”

— Gail Carson Levine

73. “He bowed. ‘The young lady must not dance alone.”

— Gail Carson Levine

74. “By the way, you are a month older than the last time I saw you. Are you still too young to marry?”

— Gail Carson Levine

75. “I never saw a lad, page or prince, so eager to learn to do a thing right.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

77. “My thoughts went to Mother, who probably wasn’t sleeping, either. On nights when we were both troubled – usually about money – we’d each go to the kitchen and find the other there. I’d brew my auntwort tea, which had calming effects, and Mother would build up the fire if the night was chilly. Then we’d sit by the fireplace with quilts over our knees and play guessing games until our yawns came quicker than our ideas.”

— Gail Carson Levine

78. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

81. “I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too.”

— Gail Carson Levine

82. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

86. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

87. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

88. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

89. “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

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

— Gail Carson Levine

91. “Good hearts weighed nothing with the queen.”

— Gail Carson Levine

92. “Sun, don’t rise!”

— Gail Carson Levine

93. “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

94. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

95. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

97. “Char was too precious to hurt, too precious to lose, too precious to betray, too precious to marry, too precious to kill, too precious to obey.”

— Gail Carson Levine

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

— Gail Carson Levine

99. “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.”

— Gail Carson Levine

100. “Perhaps you couldn’t help being angry... but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another.”

— Gail Carson Levine