Quotes from 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, savoring the sweetness, the crackle, the crunch. Cerulean, azure, blue. Shadowy, sombre, secret. Voluptuous, sensuous, amorous. Kiss, hiss, abyss. Some words sounded dangerous. Pagan. Tiger. Some words seemed to shine. Crystal. Glissade. Some words changed their meaning as I grew older. Ravishing.

I stood in a clearing among a stand of beech trees, leaves as red as rubies, branches black as jet. It was sunset, and shafts of richly colored sunlight struck through the delicate pillars of the tree trunks, as if through the lancet windows of a cathedral.

I was afraid this day would never come, she whispered. He cupped her face in his hands. I told you love works magic.

Farfallina, bella e bianca, vola vola, mai si stanca, gira qua, e gira la- poi si resta sopra un fiore, e poi si resta sopra un fiore... Butterfly, beautiful and white, fly and fly, never get tired, turn here and turn there- she rests upon a flower... and she rests upon a flower.

Belle laide, Athénaïs calls me,' I replied with a little shrug. The expression was usually used to describe a woman who was arresting despite the plainness of her looks.

I wanted to rest my eyes on green meadows. I wanted to sit on green grass under the shade of a green tree. I wanted to eat cool green salads. I longed for arugula tossed with olive oil and parmesan, for asparagus tips dripping with melted butter, for a salad of sweet and bitter green leaves. Most of all, I longed for fish and parsley soup.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have no time to be a wet-nurse for a bantling.' To my surprise, he did not flush or draw away in embarrassment. He grinned and winked at me, as if to say I could suckle him any time, and to my horror I felt myself grow red.

Her papa called her 'chiacchere' because he said she chattered away all day, just like a magpie. He had all sorts of funny names for her: 'fiorellina', my little flower; 'abelie', which meant honeysuckle; and 'topolina', my sweet little mouse. Margherita's mother only called her 'piccolina', my little one, or 'mia cara Margherita,' my darling daisy.

Margherita's father always said a person only truly revealed themselves when in disguise.

Fairy tales have been with us for a very long time. Ever since humans invented language, we have used those sounds laden with meaning to create stories – to teach, to warn, to entertain, and to effect change upon the world. Those stories have been handed down through many generations – changing with each retelling, but still carrying within them the same wisdom and transformative power that has helped shape the human psyche.

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.

The Coven of Witches, however, believed only in the natural forces of the world. Everyone was free to seek their own path to wisdom and to worship in whatever way they pleased. If they prayed, it was to Eà, who encompassed both light and darkness, life and death, the creative and the destructive. Eà was neither good nor evil, male nor female. Eà was both and neither.

Footmen stood stiffly with trays laden with foaming goblets and plates filled with tiny delicacies, such as sautéed scallops, salt cod and caviar on potato pancakes, basil palmiers, and roasted brie with gooseberries.

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

drew her coat close around her and tried to slip through the crowd, all converging on the

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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