Top 60 Patricia C. Wrede Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Out here, it’s better safe than sorry, because generally speaking, too much of the time sorry means you’re dead.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

2. “Being upset is no excuse,” Mother said sternly. “If you’re going to be rude, do it for a reason and get something from it.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

3. “Starting is good. You can’t get anywhere at all if you never start.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

4. “You can’t force folks to have good sense, even if they’re family. Maybe especially then.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

5. “I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

6. “In fact, “talent” is as common as mud; what’s rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one’s talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it until it’s finished.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

7. “He wasn’t a medical doctor, just educated all the way up as far as you can get.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

8. “Very well. You may help me to exterminate the society of wizards.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

9. “She who laughs last may not invariably laugh best, but she does laugh.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

10. “He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a sidelong look, the one that meant he was so sure you were wrong that he could just wait and let you find out for yourself the hard way.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

11. “Always be polite to a dragon. It’s harder than it sounds. Dragon etiquette is incredibly complicated, and if you make a mistake, the dragon eats you.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

12. “Humility is as good for the soul as it is for the memory.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

13. “May you and your triple cursed wash water turn purple with orange spots and fall down a bottomless pit!”

— Patricia C. Wrede

14. “Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you’d rather not.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

15. “There is nothing that is quite so reassuring in an awkward situation as knowing that one is well turned-out, and while I hope I am not so fainthearted as to require such stratagems, I am not so foolish as to overlook their value.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

16. “Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nodcocks!”

— Patricia C. Wrede

17. “Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing them down.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

18. “I’d rather be eaten by a dragon.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

19. “Sometimes I couldn’t help thinking that the unluckiest thing about being the thirteenth child was having all those older brothers and sisters telling me what to do.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

20. “That is certainly one way to look at the matter. There are others.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

21. “One of the things everybody seems to want to ask writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?” When people ask me this, my usual response is, “Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing them down.””

— Patricia C. Wrede

22. “Mendanbar took a deep breath. You could stay here. At the castle, I mean. With me. This wasn’t coming out at all the way he had wanted it to, but it was too late to stop now. He hurried on, As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, if you think you would like that. I would.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

23. “Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

24. “Brant’s an idealist, and he’s competent. There are few more dangerous combinations in this world... Heroes are even more dangerous than idealists.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

25. “One of the previous Kings of the Enchanted Forest had been very fond of sweeping up and down staircases in a long velvet robe and his best crown, so he had added stairs wherever he thought there was room.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

26. “If you’re going to be rude, do it for a reason and get something from it.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

27. “Mendanbar wondered idly whether a bucket of soapy water plus lemon juice plus dishes would be as good for melting a wizard as one without dishes, and what effect the dishes would have on the process. Being melted was probably not very comfortable, but being melted while cups and plates and forks were falling on your head was likely to be even less so.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

28. “I’m not going to dress in velvet robes with ermine trim when I’m spending the day hanging pictures and cleaning out the attic in the South Tower, no matter how much Willin would like it,” Mendanbar said firmly.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

29. “I keep forgetting that you’re not as empty headed as most princesses.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

30. “I didn’t ask what you’d said about it,” the frog snapped. “I asked what you’re going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

31. “News of Daniel’s disappearance does not alarm me as it might have done a week ago. Given recent events, very little alarms me as it might have done a week ago. I feel as if my supply of alarm has been exhausted, at least temporarily.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

32. “In short, if we wish to see anything sensible done about the situation, we will clearly have to do it ourselves.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

33. “Rennie didn’t quite dare to answer back, but she looked a whole book and a couple of extra chapters.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

34. “If you want to build a car, you don’t slap a bunch of iron ore, some sand, a rubber tree, and a couple of cows together and call it good.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

35. “Murphy is a writer’s best friend, but you have to keep an eye on him, or he’ll steal the silver.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

36. “Oh, well, if it’s a matter of honor,” I said. “You should have said that to begin with. Not that it has anything to do with deciding what we ought to do next, but I am sure you would have felt better for saying it.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

37. “Thanking all her lucky stars individually and by name, Cimorene twisted and scrambled to her feet, sword ready.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

38. “In a lot of ways I was a generation ahead of my generation; I had a working mother wheneveryone else’s mother was staying at home.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

39. “Tell the story you want to tell, and let it be as long as it needs to be. Worry about marketing it later.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

40. “Magic and music are brother and sister,” he replied as Starbrow picked his way through the fog. “The bard’s craft has always been half magic; in times past minstrels and magicians were often one and the same. Perhaps it is because we must sing so frequently of the old days and the magic of them that we do.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

41. “It’s a hard thing to risk what you know and are sure of, just for the possibility of something better. Even when it’s a pretty strong possibility, and something that’s a whole lot better.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

42. “Tis my will that thou and he shall die by my hand. Thou hast but to choose the manner of thy death.” “Old age,” Cimorene said promptly. “Mock.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

43. “You must have misunderstood,” Keredwel said severely. “No one volunteers to be a dragon’s princess. It isn’t done.” “Actually, Alianora’s quite right,” Cimorene said as she set the teacups in front of her visitors. “I did volunteer.” She smiled sweetly at the thunderstruck expressions on the faces of the first two princesses. “I got tired of embroidery and etiquette.” Keredwel.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

44. “The ceremony went by in a blur, but Mendanbar was pretty sure he hadn’t made any mistakes because suddenly he was kissing Cimorene and everyone was cheering. He felt like cheering himself, except he would have had to stop kissing Cimorene.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

45. “How can you know it’s the best, if you don’t learn about anything else?”

— Patricia C. Wrede

46. “Men can be such provoking creatures. One would think the entire world and everything in it were made only for their enjoyment and approval.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

47. “Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

48. “She probably enjoys cutting up everyone’s happiness. Not to mention cutting up other parts of people; given her penchant for poisoning people and turning them into beech trees, I fail to see how she has reached thirty without leaving a trail of bodies behind her.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

49. “We must clearly do something.”

— Patricia C. Wrede

50. “It took us most of the morning to put together the letter she sent to the Frontier Management Department, and I learned a lot about how to be frigidly polite and still leave somebody feeling like they’d been spanked.”

— Patricia C. Wrede