Quotes from Rachel Hartman

Go into the cottage, go out of my mind. Those had been my ritual words when I fortified the Wee Cottage and banished her from my garden. Might I have inadvertently created yet another inside-out house? What if that door led out of my self-constructed fortress and into the world? The egress might have been right in front of me all along.

All my life I had longed to be ordinary; how ridiculous to be disgruntled when I finally was. It was no use being envious; we were all different

I would carry my home with me, out into the world, as I looked for others to bring into it.

It rippled through the world in a great wave, rattling the bones of knowledge, shaking the heart of complacency, echoing in a hundred thousand skulls.

tactile than olfactory—but I could discern nothing else about it.

There is no pain in truth, no comfort in lies.

I forgot that other people might care what went on inside my heart.

I didn't want this dance to end, or Kiggs to let go of my hand. I didn't want him to turn his eyes away, or live any other moment than this one.

It's not the stronger arm that prevails, but the stronger mind.

Do not bring violence to the sword. Do not bring heartbreak or anger or passion. You hold in your hand the steel of rationality.

You, too, did what was easiest. Don't let that be all you do.

She often felt, early in the morning, when the world seemed most malleable, that she contained these different potentials, and more. It wasn't merely that she could be anything, but that she was everything, all at once.

There's nothing 'just' about stories. Stories are the most real.

The world is surprisingly hard to destroy," said Pathka gently. "Whereas saving it can be done a bit at a time. Anyway, don't be afraid. We're walking away from death, not toward it.

It's too great, too terrible, too much. You can shout words into the void forever and never fill it up.

A persona was developing in her mind, someone who would wear these breeches and this jacket with these boots. The boots sharpened her focus. A ridiculous situation was surely no hindrance with boots like these. She could kick her way out of anything.

Dying took commitment. It was easier to go on living incompetently. What if she put off deciding until tomorrow? She needed time to get the nerve up and work out a foolproof, painless way to do it. Until then, she'd walk on - badly.

I dared not let my eyes widen in horror or the guards would be on to me; to buy myself some time, I curtsied deeply, to a slow count of three. The prince, when I finally dared to look at him again, seemed amused. He gestured broadly. "You are finished here, one hopes?" "Yes, thank you," I said, managing to keep any tremor out of my voice. "If you wish to

Kiggs was better than coffee.

It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.

However strenuously the world pulls us apart, however long the absence, we are not changed for being dashed upon the rocks. I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home.

For future reference: do not underestimate the seductive power of math.

If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars.

Sometimes the truth has difficulty breaching the city walls of our beliefs. A lie, dressed in the correct livery, passes through more easily.