Quotes from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“I looked in my mirror and saw, not myself, but every place I'd never been.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“I was beautiful, or so my father told me. My oval mirror showed me a face with nothing written on it. I had suitors aplenty but wanted none of them: their doggish devotion seemed too easily won. I had an appetite for magic, even then. I wanted something improbably and perfect as a red rose just opening.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Your songs are still out there on the clifftop, hanging in the air for you when you want them. Wish to speak and you will speak, girl. Wish to die and you can do it. Wish to live and here you are.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“If he guessed his mistake, if he wanted me back, I thought, let him suffer and work for it as I had worked and suffered. Let him follow me over a mountain of iron and a lake of glass, and wear out three swords in my defense. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I knew my prince would not follow. In my mind's eye I saw him in his palace, stroking the gold and silver and starry dresses which were fading now like leaves in winter, weeping for a spotless princess who did not exist, who had drowned in the river of time.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“So then she took me home, or I took her home, or we were both somehow taken to the closest thing.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“No point my telling you he's not worth it, I suppose. . . I've seen enough men in my time. Whoever he is, he's not worth what you'll pay.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Perhaps we get, not what we deserve, but what we demand.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“In the days when wishing was having, I got what I wished and then I wish I hadn't.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“One of them asked what was in my skirts to make them so heavy, and I said, Knives, and he took his hand off my thigh and never touched me again.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Once I was a stupid girl; now I am an angry woman.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Keep your heart infinitesimally small and sorrow will never spy it, never plunge, never flap away with your heart in her claws.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“So when one spring in spite of all this good advice I fell in love, it felt like disaster. I took a tiny bite and it exploded in my stomach. Love splashed through every cranny, hauled on every muscle, unlocked every joint. I was so full of astonishment, I felt ten feet tall. My shoulders itched as if wings might break through.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Daughter, he said in a voice like old wood breaking, can you ever forgive me?
I could only answer his question with one of my own. Putting my hand over his mouth, I whispered, Which of us would not sell all we had to stay alive?”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“That night my new skin was red silk, shivering in the breeze.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“Under the thousand crystal candelabras I danced with ten elderly gentlemen who had nothing to say but did not let that stop them. I answered only, Indeed and Oh yes and Do you think so?”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“My names were hand-me-downs too: girl, the creature, or, most often, you there.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“What this good man had sworn to protect me from was not the same as what I feared. I trusted that he would never let anything hurt me, but he would never let anything touch me either.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“I heard a knocking in my skull, and kept running to the door, but there was never anyone there.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“When I was as young as you are now I learned how to save my own life.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

“The thing is to take your life in your hands.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins

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“You know she made me a list, don’t you?”
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