“He had a dashing smile. It nearly dashed right off his face.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“What are you doing?"
"Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly.
It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window.
"Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?"
"You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me.
I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirty-something woman in possession of a satisfying career and fabulous hairdo must be in want of very little”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“If you were a woman, all I'd have to say is 'Colin Firth in a wet shirt' and you'd say 'Ah.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“For Colin Firth:
You're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“It's not something you tell your single best friend. It'd be like rubbing your nose in the poop of my happiness.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Miss Hayes, have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? That in fact you are my fantasy?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Figure out what is real for you. No use leaning on someone else's story all your life.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time."
The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again."
Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food."
He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic."
And he spun her into the middle of the dance.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“He nodded. "And if I don't make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don't deserve to be near you.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“... fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Why was the judgement of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I'm not hopeless, that's the problem. I'm too hopeful, if anything ... I'm so thick-headed it's taken me this long to give up on men, but I can't give up completely, you know? So I ... I channel all my hope into an idea, to someone who can't reject me because he isn't real!”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Miss Erstwhile: “It is such a relief, Mr. Nobley, to already know that you find this exercise vulgar and your partner unworthy. It saves us the idle chitchat.”
Mr. Nobley: “And yet you chat away.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Well do I remember the first night we met, how you questioned my opinion that first impressions are perfect. You were right to do so, of course, but even then I suspected what I've come to believe most passionately these past weeks: from that first moment, I knew you were a dangerous woman, and I was in great peril of falling in love."
She thought she should say something witty here. She said, "Really?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I need to admit up front that I don't know how to have a fling. I'm not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I'm throwing myself at your feet because I'm hoping for a shot at forever." Henry Jenkins/Mr. Nobley”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Figure out what is real for you. No use leaning on someone else's story all your life...go make your happily-ever-after happen.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“What? Don't British women know how to use their knees?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“If you're listening Big Brother, I refuse to be Fanny Price.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I know they are naught things, but I devour novels.” (p. 57).”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I couldn't see what was real until time had washed away everything else.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Later, when they would spend straight hours conversing in the dark, Jane would realize that Henry kissed the way he talked- his entire attention taut, focused, intensely hers.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Is this why women wear heels? thought Jane. We hobble ourselves so we can still be rescued by men?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“He had the kind of face you wanted to kiss — lips, forehead, cheeks, eyelids, everywhere except his chin. That you wanted to bite.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Why was the judgment of the disapproving so valuable? Who said that their good opinions tended to be any more rational than those of generally pleasant people?”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“She was not who she'd thought she was. No one was.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Figure out what is real for you. No use leaning on someone else’s story all your life.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Without hope, it was impossible to fantasize.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“Mr Nobley: "Ah here you are. Miss Erstwhile. You are infuriating and irritating, and yet I find myself looking for you. I would be grateful if you would send me away and make me swear to never return.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
“I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.”
― Shannon Hale, quote from Austenland
Shannon Hale
Born place: in Salt Lake City, Utah, The United States
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“What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. Cora was right- we had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, as well as the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them were perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You couldn't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build a world from it.
So my true family was not just my mom, lost or found; my dad, gone from the start; and Cora, the only one who had really been there all along. It was Jamie, who took me in without question and gave me a future I once couldn't even imagine; Oliva, who did question, but also gave me answers; Harriet, who, like me, believed she needed no one and discovered otherwise. And then there was Nate.
Nate, who was a friend to me before I even knew what a friend was. Who picked me up, literally, over and over again, and never asked for anything in return except for my word and my understanding. I'd given him one but not the other, because at the time I thought I couldn't, and then proved myself right by doing exactly as my mother had, hurting to prevent from being hurt myself. Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete- like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key.
~Ruby (pgs 400-401)”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Lock and Key
“It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things. Dusk, silence, iron chill. Something lonely in the bone.”
― Don DeLillo, quote from White Noise
“We think there are limits to the dimensions of fear. Until we encounter the unknown. Then we can all feel boundless amounts of terror.”
― Peter Høeg, quote from Smilla's Sense of Snow
“So if you can heal with your touch, why are you working here as like, Hagrid, or whatever?”
― Rachel Hawkins, quote from Hex Hall
“I could go on all night, Lake. I could go on and on and on about all the reasons I’m in love with you. And you know what? Some of them are the things that life has thrown our way. I do love you because you’re the only other person I know who understands my situation. I do love you because both of us know what it’s like to lose your mom and your dad. I do love you because you’re raising your little brother, just like I am. I love you because of what you went through with your mother.
I love you because of what we went through with your mother. I love the way you love Kel. I love the way you love Caulder. And I love the way I love Kel. So I’m not about to apologize for loving all these things about you, no matter the reasons or the circumstances behind them. And no, I don’t need days, or weeks, or months to think about why I love you. It’s an easy answer for me. I love you because of you. Because of every single thing about you.”
― Colleen Hoover, quote from Point of Retreat
Sad Cypress
Wicked as They Come
Up to Me
Reasons I Fell for t...
Mastery
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