Erin Bow Quotes

It's true that when you read YA you rarely have to read about middle-aged men having affairs. Personally I consider that a plus.

We are likened to two scorpions in a bottle. Both capable of killing the other. But at risk of our own life.

He was going to die. He deserved a chance to do it on his terms. No matter what it cost us.

Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes as deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend.
"The traditional thing," he said slowly, "involves the river and a sack.

I have business to conduct in the language of fur and claw.

She was dry. She was lying on something soft. She was wrapped in quilts. There was a star of light drifting above her, and a smell like a herb garden. Taggle was a long warmth stretched out at one side, his chin in her hand, his tail curled over her neck. She thought they might be in heaven.
Taggle farted.
Plain Kate coughed and sneezed. And then she really was awake.

It's a strange word, "twilight." It makes me think of endings, of things done or left undone, of things over, of evening. But there are two twilights in every day, and one of them does not foretell darkness, but dawn.

- the rusalka was kneeling beside Plain Kate on the deck. She was made of fog and shadow until Kate caught her eye, and then, all at once, she became human. She was young, mischievously sad, a fox in a story. Kate fell in love with her. And then she was gone.

and of course people started shooting, because that's what passes for problem-solving among humans. See, guys, this is why you can't have nice things. It

Your shadow is bought and paid for, and your death will not remit that payment. You can go shadowless into the shadowless world, and your death will only be one last dark thing on my long dark road. It will hurt me but I do not care. It is all but over.

They hurried when they could, and dozed when they had to, hiding in tangles of bloodtwig and heartsease at the edge of the road.

Be brave. Things will find their shape.

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

Oh bats, oh bats, oh snacks with wings–
Come and hear how Taggle sings!
Oh squirm, oh squeak, my wriggly bats–
You'll make a gift for lady cats!

Her father sat her down and spoke to her with great seriousness. "You are not a witch, Katerina. There is magic in the world, and some of it is wholesome, and some of it is not, but it is a thing that is in the blood, and it is not in yours.
"The foolish will always treat you badly, because they think you are not beautiful," he said, and she knew this was true. Plain Kate. She was a plain as a stick and thin as a stick and flat as a stick. Her nose was too long and her brows too strong. Her father kissed her twice, once above each brow. "We cannot help what fools think. But understand, it is your skill with a blade that draws this talk. If you want to give up your carving, you have my blessing."
"I will never give it up," she answered.

At night the fog was thick and full of light, and sometimes voices.

Even as the nannies came into heat - one could tell because they grew louder than roosters and started to sexually assault the water barrels - I

There was a space inside me, cupped and still. It was small as cupped hands; it was large as the sky. It was untouched and it was touch itself. It was empty and it was full. I held love there, like a treasure. I held my own name.

Foggy little oxbows
Forest pools where no one goes
Lost links of the river dreaming dreams

What is love but a pain we choose?

And suddenly, in the place of the woman-shape made of shadow, there was something else. Something huge, something ugly. Linay flung up both hands. The thing screamed like a hawk and opened to wings: one white as a death cap, one clotted in shadow. The wings came together and the whole pond shuddered.
Something hit Kate's ear and shoulder and smashed to the deck by her feet. It was a swallow, dead. She could hear them falling all over the pond.

No, blowing up cities doesn't work, not in the long term. You've got to find something that the people in charge aren't willing to give up. A price they aren't willing to pay.
Which leads us to Talis's first rule for stopping wars: make it personal.

Kate faced the crowd. They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.
At Kate's feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open.

Behjet eased the horse forward again. "The harvest is failing. There will be no crop at all if this rain doesn't stop - not even hay."
The rain. The rain she'd been so grateful for, the rain that concealed the warping of her shadow. It was going to kill people.

Well. I am not afraid. But to protect you, Katerina, I will be discreet. Plain Kate considered a cat's idea of discretion, and was frightened.

I- I. Sorry. This is what my father would call a fucking unfortunate image.

I wished for impossible things. It was never going to have been a fairy tale for us. There are no fairy tales about two princesses.

The night was white-blind with fog, and Kate staggered over every stone and stumbled in every puddle, but she pushed on as fast as she could.

I am not sure I can."
"Become sure," said the cat, his eyes flashing green in the firelight. "Once you leap on a boar's back, you can't sheath your claws.

My mother wanted out of politics. And I'll tell you, she got as far out as she could. Down nigh the Licking River."
"The Licking - " said Da-Xia, as if she couldn't believe her luck.
Elián scrubbed a hand over his face. "The south fork."
"Have you at this point heard all the jokes about that?" asked Grego.
"I'll bet there are more," said Thandi.
"Shut up," said Elián, majestically.

Often she dreamt she had two wings, and one was frightened, and one was happy.

Stop the press," said Talis. "Ha! I haven't heard that in centuries. 'Stop the presses!' But do." The smile was sharp-edged. "Or I'll have your head on pikes.

They're gone. I let them chase me. I led them like a sunbeam and vanished like a shadow.

Plain Kate, Kate the Carver
No one's friend and no one's daughter
Little Kate might meet her fate
Whittling sticks till it's too late

The root of holiness, it turns out, is to do things deliberately.

Taggle, meanwhile, made himself popular, killing rats and bringing a rabbit into camp every evening, preening in the praise - silently, thank god, though at night, he recounted choice bits to Kate: "Rye Baro says I am a princeling; he split the leg bone for me so that I could eat the marrow. They love me. And I'm sure they'll keep you, too."
Mira, she thought, and treasured it each time she heard it, They must keep me. Family.

Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns "No one really knows me" into "I've got a secret identity." It turns "I don't understand why other people act the way they do" into "I'm trapped in a faerie realm." It turns "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell" into "my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell."
There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they are hard for everyone. We like to see these things retold, but with dragons.