Quotes from Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I milked, of course, and did some work around the barn, and tried not to think about Brian, which was like trying not to breathe.

Still, I couldn't get over Dad calling those farmers. People might think helping is hard, but really that's the easy part; just look how good it makes people feel. Look how happy all those Red Bend ladies were about chipping in. It's the asking that's so painful. It takes real courage, real strength , to say you're not strong enough to do it alone. Mom must really be hurting for Dad to be so brave.

But you know, even worrying about haircuts couldn't depress me. Because every time I started sinking low, I'd just remember about football. All this time I'd thought I wanted to be a trainer, when it turned out I wanted to be a player instead. I saw something I wanted to do and I decided to do it. The feeling of freedom this gave me—I can't even describe it. It was my decision. I chose it. I am not a cow.

You can't think about how much you have left to do because that's just one thought, one sad thought, that'll make you bummed out all day long. Instead you've got to think about how much you've already done.

Talk Back? That's really what it's called? You're supposed to walk into some church basement and say, 'I'm here to learn how to Talk Back'?

I saw something I wanted to do and I decided to do it. The feeling of freedom it gave me- I can't even describe it. It was my decision. I chose it.

I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.)

The truth that our futures are so often determined not by some grand design or deliberate strategy but by an ordinary run-of-the-mill head cold.

Bend like the sapling you are. With time we shall find your oaken core.

With every morsel I consumed, I was informed that princes most love slender young ladies. As I was as interested in a prince's love as in sticking my fish fork into my ear, I reacted to this by cleaning my plate ever more thoroughly.

Hell is paved with good intentions. Heaven is paved with Oreos.

So it was that my life passed from the joyous realm of heaven to the choking and inescapable tortures of hell.

How could Paolo think the queen and her ilk were my people? I had no more relation to them than a pigeon does to a flock of swans – or a vortex of vultures, which the castle's denizens better resembled in both attire and attitude.

My downfall, inevitably, was triggered by food.

The day of the ball was spent preparing me much as one prepares a goose for Christmas, with the same ultimate effect.

That is the delusion of which I speak! You wish the joys of true love upon every milkmaid and stable boy in your land, and yet you consign yourself and another to lives of pure misery that you might possess a well-proportioned ballroom.

Night soil oozed onto my cloak, and I wondered why all my adventures involved foul odour. Why could I not for once frolic in a meadow of flowers, or escape in a hamper of fresh laundry? No, I must endure night soil and prison cells and unwashed soldiers…

Does this smack of magic to you? Because allow me to inform you, my handsome young prince, that this be not enchantment – it be work!" With that I hurled my slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshalling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor – challenging indeed with one shoe – and around the corner.

The starlings swooped, writing a poem across the heavens that only God could read.

We talked of mice, the cat and I, and of the importance of napping.

Love is the hardest thing in the world.

How many times I have wondered what my fate might have been had I accompanied my parents that rainy spring morning. Such musings, I recognise, are more than a trifle insane, for envisioning what might have been had no more connection to our own true reality than a lunatic has to a lemon.

According to Montagne legend, the mountain has forever been the abode of giants. Long ago a traveling pair of sorcerers, husband and wife, scaled the cliff into the valley, and the woman cured the giants' chilblains with ointments and the gift of fire. In gratitude, the giants built Chateau de Montagne out of the living rock of Ancienne, and from that castle the couple founded the kingdom of Montagne, using their magic to shield the country and its people from harm.

I could not help but wonder, that night and later, why my father would even mention my marrying someone who came from a country that my mother so obviously disliked. I recall wondering that distinctly, while somehow missing the obvious connection that this boy was a prince and that I, the niece of a king, was a princess.