Catherine Gilbert Murdock quotes:

Today exists between yesterday and tomorrow.

And have your mother put my head on a stake? Do you have any notion what that would do to my handsome good looks?

I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart.

I hate it when people make fun of me and it turns out they're right.

Why was it that jam always coated me so?

Iâ??d promised myself that Iâ??d really work on talking more, talking about uncomfortable things, because I could see from Brian how well things could work out if you did.

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.

She says you're not truly human until you've had your heart broken and you've broken someone's heart.

When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

How could I pretend to be someone else when I was already failing at being the person I already was?

Oh. Listen, this is really hard for me . . . " "What is?" "You know. Being liked." I started to cry. I couldn't help it.

That which is priceless has no cost.

Sometimes,well,all the time,I can't think of what to say because I'm so dumb and stuff,and then maybe I think of it like five days later.

Everyone I looked at, their whole lives, did exactly what they were supposed to do without even questioning it, without even wondering if they could do something different.

It kind of struck me how great it would be to go out with a guy that size. And if you, you know, got tired of dating him, you could always use him as a house or something.

What is a staircase, but a corridor improved by elevation?

So what if Brian made me feel like fireworks were going off inside me. He could also make me feel like a big fat clod of heartsick dirt. It was like he could take any emotion I had and make it ten times stronger. Which is great when it's happiness but pretty darn awful if it's anything sad.

It was like he was in a contest to see who could do the least work, only he was the only contestant.

And that's where our conversation went from there, than God, both of us laughing our butts off at the thought of a hoops game between two teams on intravenous fluids. Which makes absolutely no sense at all; I know that. But that's why it cheered me up, because it was so absolutely stupid. It cheered me up more than I'd ever thought I'd be cheered up again.

Everyone's scared. So scared they can't sleep sometimes. Or eat. Or keep their weight on." "Then why bother playing?" I asked. It was a whisper, this question. "Because. You love the game. You love the people you play with. You love winning, maybe. You love that one moment when you get it right . . . I dunno. Why do you play?" "Because," I whispered, "it's who I am." Sounds like a good reason to me.

I could not but wonder at the queen's unprecedented civility, until I realized with a flush of shame that it was my own improved behavior that motivated hers. So it is that we in life determine our own treatment.

Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.

Despite all my public misconduct, in the past year, I had learned the Elemental spells, the Doppelschläferin, and the preparation and flying of a magic broom; I had survived two months as prisoner of war, saving the life of captain Johanne in the process; I had escaped the dungeons of Fortress Drachensbett, and after an arduous journey successfully reunited with my double, so preserving her, and all Montagne, from Prince Flonian's rapacity, I would somehow master the despicable art of being a princess.