Gail Carson Levine quotes:

EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.

I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer, particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that.

I didn't want to be a writer. First I wanted to act, and then I wanted to be a painter like my big sister.

Encourage children to write their own stories, and then don't rain on their parade. Don't say, 'That's not true.' Applaud flights of fantasy. Help with spelling and grammar, but stand up and cheer the use of imagination.

Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

My good ideas are shy. But if they see that I treat the stupid ideas with respect, they come forward.

And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after.

I didn't write professionally at first. It took me nine years to get anything published. At the beginning I mostly wrote picture books, which were rejected by every children's book publisher in America. The first book of mine to be accepted for publication was ELLA ENCHANTED, and not one but two publishers wanted it. That day, April 17, 1996, was one of the happiest in my life.

I want to be with you forever and beyond...

As a child, I loved fairy tales because the story, the what-comes-next, is paramount. As an adult, I'm fascinated by their logic and illogic.

I loved fairy tales as a kid, so that's where my mind gravitates.

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV.

Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy...it takes a mean author to write a good story.

If a big person invests time in reading, kids learn reading is important, the child is important, words are important, stories are important.

I was born singing. Most babies cry, I sang an aria.

Do you like to slide? His voice was eager.Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sighNo, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights.Oh. His polite tone had returned.I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction.He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him.Especially, I added, as I've grown taller.

She asks why I like her.Might as well askWhy I breathe.Maybe tomorrow I won'tBreathe or like herAnymore.Maybe tomorrow the tidesWill stop.Maybe tomorrow will bringNo more rainbows.Maybe tomorrowShe will stopAsking useless questions.

I wonder how Admat can be everywhere. Is he in my sandal? Or is he my sandal itself? Why would a god bother to be a sandal? Does he wear shoes or sandals himself, invisible ones?

Do not beat up on yourself. Do not criticize your writing as lousy, inadequate, stupid, or any of the evil epithets that you are used to heaping on yourself. Such self-bashing is never useful. If you indulge in it, your writing doesn't stand a chance. So when your mind turns on you, turn it back, stamp it down, shut it up, and keep writing.

I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.

Sometimes the kids come up with better endings than the real story.

When you become a teenager, you step onto a bridge. You may already be on it. The opposite shore is adulthood. Childhood lies behind. The bridge is made of wood. As you cross, it burns behind you

I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don't overlook.

I'm solitary as a pulled tooth, Lonely as an unwelcome truth, Lost as a minnow out of school, A genius in a crop of fools.

I put my fingers around the unmarked ring of the spyglass and twisted. The scene became clear. Oh no! A hairy brown spider clung to a vine! I couldn't go there! I'd go to the desert to find a dragon. I began to reset the spyglass, but then I stopped myself. A spider was worse than a dragon? No. My first monsters would be spiders, then.

A library is infinity under a roof.

Who judges the judge who judges wrong?The sentence too weak,The sentence too strong.The penance too quick,The penance too long.Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

In that moment I found a power beyond any I'd had before, a will and a determination I would never have need if not for Lucinda, a fortitude I hadn't been able to find for a lesser cause.

I had been able to break the curse myself. I'd had to have reason enough, love enough to do it, to find the will and the strength.

Drualt took Freya's warm hand,Her strong hand,Her sword hand,And pressed it to his lips,Pressed it to his heart.Come with me,' he said.Come with me to battle,My love. Tarry at my side.Stay with meWhen battle is done.Tarry at my side.Laugh with me,And walk with meThe long, long way.Tarry with me,My love, at my side.

The fast fliers are not disgraced." Queen Ree reached up for the missing tiara. "She saved us, but she's with him now." Vidia was complicated, two fairies in one, a loyal traitor.

It feels presumptuous to think of writing for adults.

I grew up in New York City. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school, my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry.

I found that I was much more interested in writing and that I didn't like the illustrating at all. I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process.

'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.

Although we didn't invite Lucinda, she arrived anyway-with a gift. "No need," Char and I chimed together. "Remember when you were a squirrel," Mandy said.

But my last conscious thought was an image of Prince Char when he'd caught the bridle of Sir Stephan's horse. His face had been close to mine. Two curls had spilled onto his forehead. A few freckles dusted his nose, and his eyes said he was sorry for me to go.

But what I really long to know you do not tell either: what you feel, although I've given you hints by the score of my regard. You like me. You wouldn't waste time or paper on a being you didn't like. But I think I've loved you since we met at your mother's funeral. I want to be with you forever and beyond, but you write that you are too young to marry or too old or too short or too hungry---until I crumple your letters up in despair, only to smooth them out again for a twelfth reading, hunting for hidden meanings.

Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day.

Crying is part of the adventure.

Do you like to slide?" His voice was eager. Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights." "Oh." His polite tone had returned. "I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction." He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him. "Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller.

Fate...may...be...thwarted.

He bowed. 'The young lady must not dance alone.

He is flawless, without a blemish. Majesic . . . muscular.

He -it- was a specter! I stepped back, stunned.

He loved me. He'd loved me as long as he he'd known me! I hadn't loved him as long perhaps, but now I loved him equally well, or better. I loved his laugh, his handwriting, his steady gaze, his honorableness, his freckles, his appreciation of my jokes, his hands, his determination that I should know the worst of him. And, most of all, shameful though it might be, I loved his love for me.

He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once.

Hush Hattie!" I said, intoxicated with my success. "I don't want to go to my room. Everyone must know I shan't marry the prince." I ran to the door to our street, opened it, and called out into the night, "I shan't marry the prince." I turned back into the hall and ran to Char and threw my arms about his neck. "I shan't marry you." I kissed his cheek. He was safe from me.

I became simply a pair of eyes, staring through my mask at Char. I needed no ears because I was too far off to hear his voice, no words because I was too distant for speech, and no thoughts - those I saved for later. He bent his head. I loved the hairs on the nape of his neck. He moved his lips. I admired their changing shape. He clasped his hand. I blessed his fingers. Once, the power of my gaze drew his eyes...

I didn't think [Ella Enchanted] would get published. Everything I'd written till then had been rejected. If it was published, I thought it might sell a few thousand copies and go out of print. I thought if I was lucky I could write more books and get them published, too. I still pinch myself over the way things have worked out.

I don't wait for inspiration. Writing is my job.

I had to share a room with my sister, who is five and a half years older than I am. We didn't get along well, and I felt that I had no privacy. So books were my privacy, because no one could join me in a book, no one could comment on the action or make fun of it. I used to spend hours reading in the bathroom -- and we only had one bathroom in our small apartment!

I know all about you," Char announced after we'd taken a few more steps. "You do? How could you?" "Your cook and our cook meet at the market. She talks about you." He looked sideways at me. "Do you know much about me?

I love having written. Sometimes I love writing. I love to revise. Revising is my favorite part of writing.

I loved fairy tales as a kid. I've always been drawn to fantasy. They're always exciting. There's never a dull moment. I just love the embellishments and the magical stuff. It's such fun to work with and to re-imagine your own way.

I never met a word I didn't love

I rode all day. I cried all night. The moon didn't glow. The sun didn't rise. A comet blazed Between my eyes. West and South, Wind and rain. Every way is Just the same. Pray give me a box To hide inside. Pray give me a spade To dig my own grave.

I shan't marry a prince!

I think kids abandon stories all the time. They start stories and get frustrated or get a different, better idea. I think that it is more worthwhile to stick with a story and revise it and try to finish it than abandon ship. Revisions, for any writer, are the name of the game.

I was no hero. The dearest wishes of my heart were for safety and tranquility. The world was a perilous place, wrong for the likes of me.

I wished she'd never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.

I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that. And I meditate, and one time when I was meditating, I started thinking, "Gee Gail, you love stories -- you read all the time. How come you never tell yourself a story?" While I should have been saying my mantra to myself, I started telling myself a story. It turned out to be an art appreciation book for kids with reproductions of famous artworks and pencil drawings that I did. I tried to get it published and was rejected wholesale.

If beginnings terrify you, or if you just plain don't like writing them, or if they bore you, skip 'em.

I'm more interested in plot than theme, but I hope my values find their way into my stories: kindness, sympathy, effort, and humor!

In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.

It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

Kisses were better than potions.

Luck was with me. I saw no spiders. Luck was against me. I saw no specters.

My favorite of my books is DAVE AT NIGHT, because it's loosely based on my father's childhood in an orphanage.

No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.

No one is here," Char said. "You need resist temptation no longer." "Only if you slide too." "I'll go first so I can catch you at the bottom." He flew down so incautiously that I suspected him of years of practice in his own castle. It was my turn. The ride was a dream, longer and steeper than the rail at home. The hall rose to meet me, and Char was there. He caught me and spun me around.

No sign of pleasure greeted the announcement. The mood in the hall was leaden. My mood was livelier. Fright is livelier than lead.

No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.

Oak, granite, Lilies by the road, Remember me? I remember you. Clouds brushing Clover hills, Remember me? Sister, child, Grown tall, Remember me? I remember you.

Perhaps we can come here together someday. By the way, you're a month older than the last time I saw you. Are you still too young to marry.

Step follows step, Hope follows Courage, Set your face towards danger, Set your heart on victory.

That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. "My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child." I stopped.

that the book is really good. and theres a prince in it to.

That's funny, you're funny. I like you, I'm quite taken by you.

The Writer's Oath I promise solemnly: 1. to write as often and as much as I can, 2. to respect my writing self, and 3. to nurture the writing of others. I accept these responsibilities and shall honor them always.

There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over.

There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become a part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.

Things change, people change, but that doesn't mean you should forget the past.

To me, merely and pretty were words that had nothing to do with each other. Pretty went with miraculously, and merely belonged in another paragraph entirely.

To pretend I was sliding down the stair rail." He laughed again. " You should have done it. I would have caught you at the bottom.

Voices and faces aren't manifestations of good or bad.

When I was little I knew my father had been an orphan and had lived in an orphanage. I was curious, but my father wouldn't satisfy my curiosity. He told only one story about the orphanage, and that was of sneaking out and buying candy, which he sold to other orphans. He said he had a pretty good business going--till he was busted! I guess he told that anecdote because he was the hero of it and I suspect he was rarely the hero as a child, more often the victim. There's a photo of the actual orphanage on my website, and you can see it's a forbidding looking place.

When I write, I make discoveries about my feelings.

Who judges the judge who judges wrong?

Would you favor me with a dance?" Over all the others I was his choice! I curtsied, and he took my hand. Our hands knew each other. Char looked at me, startled. "Have we met before, Lady?

Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It's not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It's misleading because it's hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it's not. The more you write, the better you're going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.

You see, writing down your meanderings gets something started deep in the recesses of your brain. That distant part of your mind knows that you want to write stories or poems or plays and not endless jabber, and it will get to work. It may take a while. You may have to write this stuff for hours or days or weeks, but eventually that subterranean part of your brain will come through and begin to send you ideas.

You're Only the fairest when your fairest to yourself

I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process.

Father asks frequently in his letters whether I fancy any Ayorthaian young lady or any in our acquaintance at home. I say no I suppose I'm confessing another fault: pride. I don't want him to know that I love if my affections are not returned