Quotes from Patricia C. Wrede

Perfect happiness is good for one's soul. It is wonderful for one's temper. However, in my experience, it tends to impair one's wits.

Bureaucrats!" Professor Torgeson said, like it was a really bad word, and her Vinland accent got thicker, the way it always did when she got angry.

He doesn't seem very impressed," Cimorene commented in some amusement. "Why should he be?" Kazul said. "Well, you're a dragon," Cimorene answered, a little taken aback. "What difference does that make to a cat?

I wish we could persuade either Thomas or James to be more forthcoming!

You yourself, I seem to remember, have a way of soaking up scandal broth even as you seem to have a mind for higher and nobler things. Stir yourself.

Just a minute," I said. I bent over and picked it up in my right hand . . . When I woke up, Shiara was dripping water on my face.

It is better to be prepared for the rock that doesn't fall than to be hit on the head by the one that you didn't expect.

There are always people in any group who will go along with authority only so long as authority agrees with their opinions," Papa said.

must tell them sometime," Alethia said. "I would rather get it over with now. And they are conveniently on our doorstep.

Well," said the frog, "what are you going to do about it?" "Marrying Therandil? I don't know. I've tried talking to my parents, but they won't listen, and neither will Therandil." "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.

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

The efficiency of the cleaning solution in liquefying wizards suggested the operation of an antithetical principal,which-" "Did you have to get him started?" Cimorene asked reproachfully.

Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nodcocks!

You're always in the kitchen," Alianora said when she poked her head through the door a moment later. "Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook and read?

No proper princess would come out looking for dragons," Woraug objected. "Well I'm not a proper princess then!" Cimorene snapped. "I make cherries jubillee and I volunteer for dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs-- or at least I would if anyone would let me. So there!

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

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

You can't force folks to have good sense, even if they're family. Maybe especially then.

Well, it doesn't sound particularly noble and knightly to say you've rescued the Chief Cook and Librarian, does it? And it has cut down on the number of interruptions. I used to get two or three knights a day, and now there's only about one a week. And the ones who do come are at least smart enough to figure out that I'm still a princess even if the dragons call me Chief Cook

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.

Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you'd rather not.

I most certainly can deny it. Of course, if I did, I'd be lying." Mairelon

I loved getting my M. B. A., and I really enjoyed being an accountant and financial analyst before I quit my day job twenty-five years ago to write full time. I just liked writing more…plus, I knew even then that as a full-time writer, I'd get plenty of chances to do business-type stuff, while as an accountant, I probably wouldn't get a lot of opportunities to write about dragons.

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.