Top 200 Shannon Hale Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”

— Shannon Hale

2. “Life is short, so live extra lives. Read books.”

— Shannon Hale

3. “It was karma, it was kismet, it was magic. It doesn’t matter how it happened, just that it did.”

— Shannon Hale

4. “You don’t need luck. You are powerful, clever, and fearless.”

— Shannon Hale

5. “I’m not bossy – I just happen to be more capable than most everyone else.”

— Shannon Hale

6. “I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself.”

— Shannon Hale

7. “You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.”

— Shannon Hale

8. “No wolf falters before the bite So strike No hawk wavers before the dive Just strike.”

— Shannon Hale

9. “Many times I have learned that, you never judge a book by its cover. Like people, it is the inside that counts.”

— Shannon Hale

10. “Don’t hesitate if you know it’s right.”

— Shannon Hale

11. “Truth is when your mind and your gut agree.”

— Shannon Hale

12. “Really, becoming a writer sounds more like a mental illness than a professional choice.”

— Shannon Hale

13. “Reading a book is like going on a great journey. You don’t know what’ll happen, but something is bound to change. And for me, that change has always been good.”

— Shannon Hale

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

— Shannon Hale

15. “Look no farther than your hand, Make a choice and take a stand.”

— Shannon Hale

16. “Smell is the voice of the soul...”

— Shannon Hale

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

— Shannon Hale

18. “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.”

— Shannon Hale

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

— Shannon Hale

20. “Sometimes one does not mean to fall in love. Sometimes it just happens.”

— Shannon Hale

21. “But the hoping, that’s what really hurts.”

— Shannon Hale

22. “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.”

— Shannon Hale

23. “I am not sure I am ready to know what I think about that, so I dare not write it out.”

— Shannon Hale

24. “Miss Hayes, have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? That in fact you are my fantasy?”

— Shannon Hale

25. “I wish stories were kinder to their characters,” Maddie said. “But I guess trouble is more interesting to read about.”

— Shannon Hale

26. “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?”

— Shannon Hale

27. “A little snark, properly directed, can change the world.”

— Shannon Hale

28. “What should I say? That I like him so much it hurts?”

— Shannon Hale

29. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be near you.”

— Shannon Hale

30. “I cannot write to anyone outside myself – if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That’s the only person I’m trying to please.”

— Shannon Hale

31. “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.”

— Shannon Hale

32. “They laughed much harder than the memory was funny because it felt good to laugh.”

— Shannon Hale

33. “He smiled in a way that made me want to kiss him right on the spot. Or the lips. Whichever was closer.”

— Shannon Hale

34. “But, how do you know if an ending is truly good for the characters unless you’ve traveled with them through every page?”

— Shannon Hale

35. “What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was. It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

— Shannon Hale

36. “No more crying. It’s all wetness and no comfort at all.”

— Shannon Hale

37. “For Colin Firth: You’re a really great guy, but I’m married, so I think we should just be friends.”

— Shannon Hale

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

— Shannon Hale

39. “She put a wedge beside my heart And then she brought the mallet down She sang no song to guide her work I lost my heart without a sound.”

— Shannon Hale

40. “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.”

— Shannon Hale

41. “I’m a terrible prince. I should put my kingdom first and everything else second, but your first. I want you by my side every second, but I know I would crumble if I lost you.”

— Shannon Hale

Featured in: Romance Quotes

42. “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.”

— Shannon Hale

43. “Her smile was peculiar – it made her nose wrinkle, not as though she smelled something unpleasant, but more that she was so amused, her whole face wanted to be a part of the smile.”

— Shannon Hale

44. “She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby’s neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.”

— Shannon Hale

45. “No small thing, a bee’s sting When it enters the heart Not so benign, the growing vine When it tears stone apart.”

— Shannon Hale

46. “She’s as fetching as brown hair done up with ribbons blue The mountain, my lady She’s as sweet as pink flowers made bright with morning dew, Mount Eskel, my lady.”

— Shannon Hale

47. “I know I would crumble if I lost you.”

— Shannon Hale

48. “It’s not something you tell your single best friend. It’d be like rubbing your nose in the poop of my happiness.”

— Shannon Hale

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

— Shannon Hale

50. “Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don’t make sense.”

— Shannon Hale