“I'm not brave,' Ava replied huskily. 'If you only knew how afraid I really am. Sometimes I think I am afraid of everything.' 'But isn't that what being brave is all about? Being afraid, but doing it anyway?”

“You've honey on your tongue, ma fifille," Maman once said. "If you'd lived in earlier times, you could have been a troubadour.""...There aren't any troubadours any more, are there, Maman?" Marie said. "And if there were, girls wouldn't be allowed to be one.""Probably not," Maman agreed sadly."I'll be one anyway," I said with determination.Maman smiled and gently pulled on my hair. "I'm sure you will, ma fifille, a clever girl like you. You can do whatever you like in this world if you just have courage enough.”

“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.”

“ I also know that not everyone will like what I do, and that there are many people who do love my work, and so I write for them, and for my own pleasure, and try not to brood too much over those who have different tastes. And I have written enough books now that I know the self-doubt and the anxiety are part of the creative process, and drive me to keep trying to do better, and keep me from becoming too cocksure about my writing, which is a form of creative death.”

“Words. I had always loved them. I collected them, like I had collected pretty stones as a child.”

“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.”

“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”

“Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell as tory without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadors of the past, who hid their messages in poems, songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose [ … ] It was by telling stories that I would save myself.”

“Stories are important too. Stories help make sense of things. They make you believe you can do things. They help you imagine that things may be different, that if you just have enough courage... or faith... or goodness... you can change things for the better.”

“Hannah Rose Brown was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed. THE PUZZLE RING”

“There's a flame of magic inside every stone & every flower, every bird that sings & every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees & the hills & the river & the rocks, in the sea & the stars & the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.”