Quotes from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“That's funny, you're funny. I like you, I'm quite taken by you.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“And so, with laughter and love, we lived happily ever after.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“I want to be with you forever and beyond...”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“I trust you to find the good in me, but the bad I must be sure you don't overlook.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“If I couldn't sleep, I could read.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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?”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?" I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added, " She is happy, I think, She is rich, so she is happy." Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince! " How do you know?" he said. I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind." "Perhaps she's changed," he said. " I don't think so, your Highness.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“He bowed. 'The young lady must not dance alone.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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...”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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?”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

“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.”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from Ella Enchanted

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“If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must first make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.”
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“It is lonely behind these boundaries. Some people-particularly those whom psychiatrists call schizoid-because of unpleasant, traumatizing experiences in childhood, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile, confusing and unnurturing. Such people feel their boundaries to be protecting and comforting and find a sense of safety in their loneliness. But most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escapetemporarily. The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual's ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person. The sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, and the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experienced by most of us as ecstatic. We and our beloved are one! Loneliness is no more!

In some respects (but certainly not in all) the act of falling in love is an act of regression. The experience of merging with the loved one has in it echoes from the time when we were merged with our mothers in infancy. Along with the merging we also reexperience the sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey out of childhood. All things seem possible! United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believe that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light. The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be king of the family and the world with power unlimited.

Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-old's fantasy of omnipotence so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple who have fallen in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. He wants to have sex; she doesn't. She wants to go to the movies; he doesn't. He wants to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job; he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends; he doesn't like hers. So both of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they are not one with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have his or her own desires, tastes, prejudices and timing different from the other's. One by one, gradually or suddenly, the ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love. Once again they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of their relationship or to initiate the work of real loving.”
― M. Scott Peck, quote from The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

“She was his and he was hers. They had under-the-skin privileges.”
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