Kate Forsyth Quotes

War is an unpredictable beast. Once unleashed, it runs like a rabid dog, ravening friend or foe alike. It can drag on for years, a slow attrition of nerve and fortitude, or be over in one brilliant flash, an extravagant conflagration of flame and blood and waste. ~ Kate Forsyth

What they do no' understand, they fear, and they hate what makes them afraid, for they think it is a sign o' weakness. ~ Kate Forsyth

Can we make promises to each other, as if we were truly married? Can we swear to be true and faithful and love only each other and all those things? Because I'm in such pain, Margherita, I need to have you, I need to know that you're mine. I've been in torment since I first saw you. No, since I first heard you singing from you tower height. Please, mia bella bianca, please let us swear to each other. Love breaks all spells, I know it does. Wear my ring and let me know-"
She stopped his words with her mouth, cupping both hands about his face. Then she sat back to show him the ring on her finger. "I swear it all. Is that good enough? Because I really need you to kiss me again. ~ Kate Forsyth

What's wrong with writing about love? Everybody longs for love. ~ Kate Forsyth

As an adult, I have often been deep in serious conversation with someone I've highly respected and seen them roll an eye as my mouth has mangled yet another magnificently conceived, clumsily articulated sentence. In my mind, the words are mellifluous as honey. In my mouth, they are shards of glass. ~ Kate Forsyth

Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell as tory without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadors of the past, who hid their messages in poems, songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose [ ... ]
It was by telling stories that I would save myself. ~ Kate Forsyth

I stood in a clearing among a stand of beech trees, leaves as red as rubies, branches black as jet. It was sunset, and shafts of richly colored sunlight struck through the delicate pillars of the tree trunks, as if through the lancet windows of a cathedral. ~ Kate Forsyth

These things you know." Scarlett shook her head in a mock amazement. "Where do you get all this stuff from " "Books you know the things made from words printed on paper and bound together. Im sure you must have seen one even if you've never opened one " Max said. "Ha ha very funny " Scarlett said. Hannah found she had remembered how to smile. ~ Kate Forsyth

Storytelling is as old as speech. It existed before humans first began to carve shapes in stones and press their hands upon the rocky walls of caves. ~ Kate Forsyth

She felt as if she had strayed into a fairy tale, as full of peril as of wonder, a place where anything could happen. ~ Kate Forsyth

Ava's father believed that myths and fairy tales - like dreams - opened a window into the unconscious. by listening to the language of dreams and old tales, he said, all humans could learn to understand themselves and the world, better. ~ Kate Forsyth

Sanitising stories, leaching out all of the sense of danger and the darkness out of the stories, actually reduces them and stops them from doing what they're supposed to do, which is teach us how to manage our lives. ~ Kate Forsyth

Nothing opens up the mind and the heart like books do, and so they have the power to change the whole world. That's why the are burning books, Ava. To stop us thinking, and feeling, and imagining ... ~ Kate Forsyth

Had she been broken and healed all awry, like a bone that had not been properly set? ~ Kate Forsyth

Perhaps there was a secret door down low in the wall, a door only large enough for a child. If I stepped through that door, I would be in another world, in fairyland perhaps. It would be warm and bright there, and I would have a magical wand to protect myself. I'd ride on the back of a dragonfly, swooping through the forest. I'd battle dragons and talk to birds and have all kinds of grand adventures.
Later, I found that small door into fairyland could be conjured any time I needed it. The world beyond the door was different every time. Sometimes, I found a little stone house in the woods where I could live with just Nanette and my sister, Marie, and a tabby cat who purred by the fire. Sometimes, I lived in a castle in the air with a handsome prince who loved me. Other times, I was the prince myself, with a golden sword and a white charger. ~ Kate Forsyth

Stories are important too. Stories help make sense of things. They make you believe you can do things. They help you imagine that things may be different, that if you just have enough courage ... or faith ... or goodness ... you can change things for the better. ~ Kate Forsyth

We all want to win against all odds. We all want to be loved. We all wish it was possible to change our world and to make our world a better place. ~ Kate Forsyth

She paced her room all day, tossed sleeplessly in her bed all night. At dusk, she sat in her window and poured all her longing and desire into her songs, hoping he would somehow hear her and return.
And he did. ~ Kate Forsyth

Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms - a golden crown, a silver horse, a butterfly caught in amber, a cat's eye shell, a bolt of lightning forged from the heart of a falling star, and the flower of the rue plant, herb of grace. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain of charms was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune. ~ Kate Forsyth

Every word we speak calls on 37 muscles and thousands of nerves. It's not surprising that sometimes these nerves and muscles fail us. ~ Kate Forsyth

Seasickness ... is caused ... by the disturbance ... to the inner ear " he said. " You just need ... to ... look ... at ... the horizon ... " His last words disappeared as he vomited violently over the side of the boat. "What's wrong " "Doctor Death is seasick. ~ Kate Forsyth

I'm not brave,' Ava replied huskily. 'If you only knew how afraid I really am. Sometimes I think I am afraid of everything.' 'But isn't that what being brave is all about? Being afraid, but doing it anyway? ~ Kate Forsyth

I love fairy tales because of their haunting beauty and magical strangeness. They are set in worlds where anything can happen. Frogs can be kings, a thicket of brambles can hide a castle where a royal court has lain asleep for a hundred years, a boy can outwit a giant, and a girl can break a curse with nothing but her courage and steadfastness. ~ Kate Forsyth

Hannah Rose Brown was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed. THE PUZZLE RING ~ Kate Forsyth

I have struggled all my life with my stuttering. Not to mention all my other speech impediments. I think I have every language disorder known to speech pathologists. ~ Kate Forsyth

Fairytales work on two levels. On a conscious level, they are stories of true love and triumph and overcoming difficult odds and so are pleasurable to read. But they work on a deeper and symbolic level in that they play out our universal psychological dramas and hidden desires and fears. ~ Kate Forsyth

And what do you think true love is? her father had asked her. 'Loving even when all hope is gone,' she had answered. ~ Kate Forsyth

As I grew up, I read and loved many fairy-tale retellings and began to think about writing my own reimagining of 'Rapunzel.' ~ Kate Forsyth

To light a candle is to cast a shadow ~ Kate Forsyth

I also know that not everyone will like what I do, and that there are many people who do love my work, and so I write for them, and for my own pleasure, and try not to brood too much over those who have different tastes. And I have written enough books now that I know the self-doubt and the anxiety are part of the creative process, and drive me to keep trying to do better, and keep me from becoming too cocksure about my writing, which is a form of creative death. ~ Kate Forsyth

The scent of linden blossoms hung heavy on the air. Dortchen made a sharp, jerking movement, as if to walk away. But she hesitated, then turned and went down the long, winding path, past the tangle of briar roses and into the secret grove of linden trees. She picked a blossom and held it to her nose, inhaling deeply. Then she sat on the grass, the blossom cupped in her hand, leant her head back against the tree and closed her eyes. All she could hear was the soft sough of the wind in the leaves, and the humming of innumerable bees as they gathered the nectar from the creamy-white flowers. ~ Kate Forsyth

The garden was the most beautiful place Margherita had ever seen. In spring, it was a sea of delicate blossom. In summer, it was green and fruitful. In autumn, the trees blazed gold and red and orange, as vivid as Margherita's hair. Even in winter, it was beautiful, with bare branches against the old stone walls and green hedges in curves and curlicues about beds of winter-flowering herbs and flowers. ~ Kate Forsyth

The ogres and witches and giants of fairytales stand in as metaphors for those obstacles that we all face in our own lives. ~ Kate Forsyth

There's a flame of magic inside every stone & every flower, every bird that sings & every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees & the hills & the river & the rocks, in the sea & the stars & the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars. ~ Kate Forsyth

Fairytales were never really meant for children; they were meant as cautionary tales for teenagers on the verge of growing up. ~ Kate Forsyth

I had always been a great talker and teller of tales.
'You should put a lock on that tongue of yours. It's long enough and sharp enough to slit your own throat,' our guardian warned me, the night before I left home to go to the royal court at Versailles ... I just laughed. 'Don't you know a woman's tongue is her sword? You wouldn't want me to let my only weapon rust, would you? ~ Kate Forsyth

A small grove of linden trees grew on the far side of the lake, below the palace. Dortchen made her way there carefully, not wanting to be seen so close to the King's residence. The trees were in full blossom, bees reeling drunkenly from the pale-yellow flowers that hung down in clusters below the heart-shaped leaves. Dortchen harvested what she could reach, breathing the sweet scent deeply, then picked handfuls of the wild roses that grew in a tangled hedge along the path. She would crystallise the petals with sugar when she got home, or make rose water to sell in her father's shop.
She plucked some dandelions she found growing wild in a clearing, and then some meadowsweet, and at last reached the ancient old oak tree she knew from her last foray into the royal park. Here she found handfuls of the sparse grey moss, and she hid it deep within her basket, beneath the flowers and herbs and leaves. ~ Kate Forsyth

Once upon a time, I was a little girl sick in the hospital, and my mother gave me a copy of 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' to comfort me. ~ Kate Forsyth

Words. I had always loved them. I collected them, like I had collected pretty stones as a child. I liked to roll words over my tongue like a lump of molten honeycomb, savouring the sweetness, the crackle, the crunch. ~ Kate Forsyth

I wish I could paint like Raphael," Lucio said. "I'd paint you! You should smile more often - it's like dawn breaking over a snowfield. ~ Kate Forsyth

Do you deny the Scriptures, madame? For is it not said that a woman should be silent and have no authority over man?'
'Of course I do not deny the Scriptures, Your Majesty.'
'Yet you are on of these 'réformés,' are you not?'
She met the King's gaze. 'I am, Your Majesty. But we do not deny the Scriptures. We believe they contain all that is necessary for the service of God and our own salvation.'
He frowned. 'Yet you argue against the one true Church, is that not so?'
She picked her words with care. 'The one true Church is made up of those faithful who agree to follow the word of God. ~ Kate Forsyth

No story was just a story, though. It was a suitcase stuffed with secrets. ~ Kate Forsyth

Only the lame could love and only the maimed could mourn ~ Kate Forsyth

It seemed like a magical city, floating on the lagoon as if conjured by an enchanter's wand. I sat in the meadow and stared at it, picking meadow flowers from around my feet- clover and daisies and wild garlic- and making myself a wreath. ~ Kate Forsyth

The world is a cruel place, Petrosinella, and it wounds the weak. ~ Kate Forsyth

Stories are the common ground that allow people to connect, despite all our defences and all our differences. ~ Kate Forsyth

May my heart be kind, my mind fierce, and my spirit brave. ~ Kate Forsyth

Please we would much rather sail free we mean you no harm I promise " he floated upright in the water frowning then bowed his head in agreement. With a flick of their tails the blue men dived and were gone. "I promise " Hannah breathed. Of course. "That's a hard one to rhyme with. Scarlet Max and Donovan leapt up and down shouting with joy. "I knew you could do it" Scarlet shrieked. "It was just luck " Hannah said "I didn't have time to think. I just said the first thing that came into my mind. I could've said I swear and then he could have said pear or mare or square ... " "That was amazing " Donovan said. "You were so quick" I didn't feel quick " Hannah grinned " I felt as thick as a brick." "O goodness she cant stop " Donovan said laughing. ~ Kate Forsyth

If we want a better world, we must never cease to think about what kind of world we want ... and we must not be afraid to do whatever it takes to make the world the way it should be. It is not enough just to talk. We must act! ~ Kate Forsyth

I want to stay here and think about the secret door.'
'You can think about it on the way. That's the beautiful thing about the secret door. You can open it anywhere, any time.'
In later years, the court ladies often laughed behind their fans at the Dauphin, saying cruelly that he could spend a whole day tapping his cane against his foot and staring into space. I knew, though, that he was building castles in the air. ~ Kate Forsyth

By fire, fever, storm and sword, your blood shall suffer this bane. No peace or joy for Wintersloe's lord, till the puzzle ring is whole again ~ Kate Forsyth

To tell the truth, fairytales have never gone out of style. They have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of tellers. ~ Kate Forsyth

When our ancestors crouched about the camp fire at night, they told each other tales of gods and heroes, monsters and marvels, to hold back the terrors of the night. Such tales comforted and entertained, diverted and educated those who listened, and helped shape their sense of the world and their place in it. ~ Kate Forsyth

Stories are like that. Like cities, they are built on the stones and bones of the past. ~ Kate Forsyth

You've honey on your tongue, ma fifille," Maman once said. "If you'd lived in earlier times, you could have been a troubadour."
" ... There aren't any troubadours any more, are there, Maman?" Marie said. "And if there were, girls wouldn't be allowed to be one."
"Probably not," Maman agreed sadly.
"I'll be one anyway," I said with determination.
Maman smiled and gently pulled on my hair. "I'm sure you will, ma fifille, a clever girl like you. You can do whatever you like in this world if you just have courage enough. ~ Kate Forsyth BITTER GREENS

Fairy-tales are as old as language itself.

Indeed, many linguistic scholars believe that language was invented simply so that humans could tell each other stories. Non-verbal communication is surprisingly effective, as anyone who has observed chimpanzees at the zoo can confirm. However, for humans to express more sophisticated ideas they needed a more subtle and complex form of communication. And so, about sixty thousand years ago, humans began telling each other stories.


The purpose of these stories was manifold. On the one hand, they amused and entertained and brought comfort and consolation. On the other, they warned and enlightened and taught what was needed to be known. ~ Kate Forsyth

Many people think fairy tales and retellings of fairy tales are only for children, but I'm not the only writer to take an old tale and retell it for a sophisticated adult audience. ~ Kate Forsyth

The whole reason for telling the fairy tales is to awaken the heart. To help people believe that misfortune can be overcome and evil conquered. ~ Kate Forsyth

One of the biggest mistakes people make is to think that what you need to write a novel is imagination, creativity and a facility with words. Yes, you need all those things, but a novel is a highly complex organism that needs to be dealt with in quite a logical manner. ~ Kate Forsyth

This was an adventure. She was alive and awake and in charge, and Devin needed to see that. A kaleidoscope of landscapes passed like a slide show- farmland, sandy pine barrens, cypress ponds. This is what Kate's mother had referred to as the "Wet South, as they'd made their way to Lost Lake the last time. She'd made it sound unexplored and exotic, something untoward and almost fearful. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

But it was not so complicated really. Such things rarely are. It was a simple case of stars aligning; those that didn't being nudged into place. ~ Kate Morton

I am harder on myself than anyone else could be. ~ Kate Smith

My, I was scared!" Said Billy with a deep breath.
Scared?" Questioned Elnora.
Yes, sir-ee! Aunt Margaret scared me. May i ask you a question?"
Of course, you may!"
Is that man going to be you beau?"
Billy! No! What made you think such a thing?"
Aunt Margaret said likely he would fall in love with you, and you wouldn't want me around any more. Oh, but I was scared! It isn't so, is it?"
Indeed, no!"
I am your beau, ain't I?"
Surely you are!" said Elnora, tightening her arm.
I hope Aunt Kate has ginger cookies," said Billy with a little skip of delight. ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

In life loyalty is something that you earn and Doreen had more than earned my loyalty over the years. But marriage is a rogue state with its own rules, and one of them is pledging your loyalty to somebody before you can be fully sure that they deserve it, so you stand their ground. You mess with him? You mess with me. That's the new rule. A husband is instant family. He gets the loyalty of a blood tie without doing any of the work. ~ Kate Kerrigan

Sylvie considered that children should be toughened up early, the better to take the blows in later life. ~ Kate Atkinson

...home is a magnet that lures back even its most abstracted children. But whether tomorrow or years from now, I cannot guess. ~ Kate Morton

And all because a boy loved a girl, she said at last. ~ Lauren Kate

While you are waiting to die, you have to live. ~ Kate Williams

I fended them off as best I could while trying to shield my eyes but, tragically, I'd left my flamethrower in my other suit. ~ Alexis Hall

It's weird how you think you've got your life sussed and then it flips over and all your priorities change. ~ Kate Le Vann

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Judge me if you must, but keep in mind how very little pleasure I could have possibly derived from a one-thrust sex session, a quickie in a closet, and a come-free drunken hookup.
If anything, you should feel sorry for me. ~ Kate Madison

If they weren't nice to you when you were growing up, you'll probably be attracted to partners who aren't nice to you now. ~ Kate McGahan

I've always known that a book will find you when you need to be found; in New York I learned that so does history. ~ Kate Bolick

Sometimes she is struck by how much she goes through life almost unconsciously. She is being swept along. She is a pale ghost. ~ Kate Zambreno

You're what I want, and the rest of it doesn't matter enough to make a difference. ~ Kate Brauning

Can we ever see the truth when desire blinds us? Or do we call it the truth because it is what we wish to see? ~ Kate Elliott

What I like about Rebel's style of comedy is she never plays the victim ... she's never been fazed by her shape; it's just the way it is. She would mock her appearance whatever she looked like. ~ Kate Jenkinson

We came to Vienna to find this"-she pointed-"the desired thing. But we're running out of time and we don't know what it is or where to find it."
"Now splendid. You've come to the right place."
"I knew it!" Arriane crowed. She leaned back into her chair and slapped Annabelle, who was politely nibbling at a scone, on the back. "As soon as I saw you, I knew we'd be okay. You have the desideratum, don't you?"
"No, dear." Dee shook her head.
"Then…what?" Daniel asked.
"I am the desideratum." She beamed. "I've been waiting such a long time to be called into service. ~ Lauren Kate

I miss Cindy McCain - she seemed so life-like.
I'm a moderate lesbian - I only hold a grudge for six generations.
Step away from your e-vehicle.
Email is a depressant.
The patriarchy is so Dada.
We've got homomentum!
America was built by affirmative action - for white men.
If they want gay people to stop having sex, let them get married.
I'm on a single prayer health plan: please god, don't let me get sick.
Taser them with love.


~ Kate Clinton

My job is to get to the heart of a story, to find out what's really going on; to get it verified and, then, to get it out to as many people as possible as fast as. ~ Kate Adie

Educational system in America is not as good as in China. You may be an idiot. It is hard to tell with you white people. ~ Kate Danley

( ... ) maybe the heart is an organ on constant ready, always waiting to try again, always open to the next best thing. ~ Kate Ellison

If you believe in magic,' I (Kate) said.
'If it exists,' said Joanna, 'it doesn't matter a toss whether you believe in it or not. ~ Jennifer Lee Carrell

It's imposible to even imagine Lucy Ricardo without Ethel Mertz, and because of that, this dynamic duo set the bar for future female friendships on TV. Consider Laverne and Shirley, Kate and Allie, Mar and Rhoda, Wilma and Betty, and Cagney and Lacey - where would they have been without Lucy and Ethel. ~ Elisabeth Edwards

But I'd far rather live without souls or morals than Parmesan. ~ Kate Quinn

She wanted you to move forward without regrets, not to deny the past entirely. ~ Kate Morton

What?" my partner asked suddenly.
I jumped, guilty at having been caught staring. But, hell, I thought, might as well ask. "Are you two
you know?" I made a vaguely obscene gesture with my fingers.
He stopped walking so fast I was shocked he didn't get whiplash. "What?"
I waved toward the building. "You and Shandi."
Instead of answering, he threw his head back and brayed like the jackass he was. ~ Jaye Wells

Lots of talk lately about the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL that seems to be exclusively masculine. And how many of the characters in the GENIUS BOOKS are likable? Is Holden Caulfield likable? Is Meursault in The Stranger? Is Henry Miller? Is any character in any of these system novels particularly likable? Aren't they usually loathsome but human, etc., loathsome and neurotic and obsessed? In my memory, all the characters in Jonathan Franzen are total douchebags (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to use that, feminine imagery, whatever, but it is SO satisfying to say and think). How about female characters in the genius books? Was Madame Bovary likable? Was Anna Karenina? Is Daisy Buchanan likable? Is Daisy Miller? Is it the specific way in which supposed readers HATE unlikable female characters (who are too depressed, too crazy, too vain, too self-involved, too bored, too boring), that mirrors the specific way in which people HATE unlikable girls and women for the same qualities? We do not allow, really, the notion of the antiheroine, as penned by women, because we confuse the autobiographical, and we pass judgment on the female author for her terrible self-involved and indulgent life. We do not hate Scott Fitzgerald in "The Crack-Up" or Georges Bataille in Guilty for being drunken and totally wading in their own pathos, but Jean Rhys is too much of a victim. ~ Kate Zambreno

Our spirits are full of possibilities, yet we tie ourselves down to socially-prescribed names and categories so we're acceptable to more people. We take on identities that no one has to think about, and that's probably how we become and why we remain men and women. ~ Kate Bornstein

Sometimes I feel like relationships consist of telling your same life stories to different people until someone finally appreciates them. ~ Kate Rockland

I laughed under my breath, and it sounded bitter. "Listen to me. What am I talking about, worth it? Is any experience or bit of beauty worth the cost of my life? I know nothing but safety and self-preservation at all costs."
"And yet," he said softly, "you're risking everything to help me. ~ Kate Avery Ellison

Boys are unpredictable. This maybe not be news, but I'm starting to think it's one of the best things about them. ~ Kate Brian

I'm not the pedigree kid. I'm not classically trained. I didn't come from the fancy home, no. ~ Kate Winslet

It occurred to her, suddenly, that the Chinese took poets as concubines. Their poets slept with warlords. They wrote with gold ink. They ate orchids and smoked opium. They were consecrated by nuance, by birds and silk and the ritual birthdays of gods and nothing changed for a thousand years. And afternoon was absinthe yellow and almond, burnt orange and chrysanthemum. And in the abstract sky, a litany of kites. ~ Kate Braverman

Marlee was fourteen. A dangerous age, although, let's face it, Jackson thought, every age was a dangerous age for a woman. ~ Kate Atkinson

I've written extensively on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth and seen up close how those women, who were born when the country hoped for a male heir, made their way as leaders. ~ Kate Williams

Some believe without rules and morals that we're no better than animals." He leans in, his mouth twisting seductively. "But it can be a lot of fun to be an animal. ~ Kate Stewart

Why didn't you tell me how dangerous my feelings were?"
"There's a difference between power and danger. Your feelings are more powerful than anything in the world. But you shouldn't be afraid of them. Love is bigger than fear. ~ Lauren Kate

I turn my gaped mouth away from Kate and look down the tree lined street, with parked cars on both sides and room for one line of traffic down the middle. That's not what's bothering me, though. It's the vicious, black, rubber speed humps dotted every twenty yards that have my attention. Oh God, I'm going to be tossed about like a penny in a tumble dryer. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas