Sarah Zettel > Quotes

“I'm going to go out on a limb here. I've thought a lot about this one, as a feminist, and as an author. How should traditional roles be portrayed? In fantasy literature there is a school of thought that holds that women must be treated precisely like men. Only the traditional male sphere of power and means of wielding power count. If a woman is shown in a traditionally female role, then she must be being shown as inferior.

After a lot of thought, and some real-life stabs at those traditional roles, I've come to firmly disagree with this idea. For an author to show that only traditional male power and place matter is to discount and belittle the hard and complex lives of our peers and our ancestresses.”
― Sarah Zettel, Mapping the World of Harry Potter: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Explore the Bestselling Series of All Time

“Mama took me in her arms and held me tight. Her embrace was hot and she smelled like sweat, dust, and grease, but I wanted her. I wanted to crawl inside her mind to find that place that let her smile and sing through the worst dust storms. If I had to be crazy, I wanted my mama's kind of crazy, because she was never afraid.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“They were beautiful beyond words, beautiful beyond understanding. So beautiful, I wanted to tear out my heart and hand it over, because after seeing them, I surely wouldn't have any more use for it.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“I wasn't used to looking ahead. Not like Jack. Maybe that was why he had that ready grin. I could see through the dust, but he could see through time, and he didn't even need magic to do it.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“What's it like where they live?"

"It's everything you want it to be.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“Bullets sound like hornets when they pass too close to your head. After a while, the world closes down. You can't hear much, you can't see much, just the way ahead, the next slat, the next open gate. All you know is running; the only place that's real is away.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“I thought maybe I could just get away from everything. But you can't get away from a thing that's your own fault.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“Now that you know the wishing ways, you'll feel the wishes around you. They'll make you itchy, 'cause you know you can do something about them, but that ain't always the best idea.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“The makers, the beautiful, the ones cast out because their light was too brilliant for the world beyond. The ones who wish true and deep with their whole hearts for more than they have. They come here, and we love them.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“I'd been right about Jack Holland. He had the kind of face that could make you believe.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“The true lady treats the whole world as her dance floor,”
― Sarah Zettel, Palace of Spies

“I'd never have gotten this far without you," I said.

Jack tipped his cap to me. My heart squirmed around to find a new position under my ribs. I closed the door fast before I could say something really stupid.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“We're not in Fairyland! We're in Kansas!”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“I wish I knew who I am," I whispered to the stars in Baya's eyes.

Slowly, Baya shook his head. "Oh, Dust Girl, that's the hardest wish of all. Not even Baya can give you that one. That one you earn.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“The man has more masks than a whole troupe of Italian players.”
― Sarah Zettel, Palace of Spies

“Sometimes it's not good for people to find out who you really are.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“A gun is a terrible thing. It's a dark hole pointed at you, and that hole swallows up everything else in the world, your friends, your nerve, until there's nothing but you and what's waiting in that little round space of dark.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“There was a lot under those words. I'd go digging for it later.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“I reached for Jack's hand. It was cold. But then, so was mine.”
― Sarah Zettel, Dust Girl

“Sevarin had been dismissive about the chance of finding out anything useful from the cops, but when it came to getting information, I had an edge he didn't.
Sevarin did not make a killer lasagne.”
― sarah zettel, A Taste of the Nightlife

“This was Jonan's boat. She had helped Nan Seller dose his entire crew against the annual diarrhea outbreak known as the "winter runs”
― Sarah Zettel, Kingdom of Cages

“I reject the notion that we must tell girls that the only way to be valid human beings is to turn themselves into boys.”
― Sarah Zettel, Mapping the World of Harry Potter: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Explore the Bestselling Series of All Time

“But art is supposed to enlighten, isn’t it? Not just reflect? It’s to show us the best of the present modeled in the best of the past.”
― Sarah Zettel, Palace of Spies

“We must be bold. Timidity will yield us nothing.”
― Sarah Zettel, Palace of Spies

“Arthur stood in the doorway, his fond brown eyes shining in the light of the tapers and the fire.
Guinevere stood to greet him, marveling at how, after all this time, the merest sight of this man could still quicken her heart, be it ever so weighted down.”
― Sarah Zettel, Under Camelot's Banner

“but it would hurt much more than if she gave in.”
― Sarah Zettel, The Sarah Zettel Collection: Playing God / Reclamation / The Quiet Invasion / Fool's War

“With an effort, she shook the sorrow off. She knew the touch of such feelings by now. She knew they could be taken up or allowed to pass. She would not let it distract her.”
― Sarah Zettel, Under Camelot's Banner

“I possessed dark hair too coarse for fashion, pale skin too prone to freckle in the sun, and dark eyes too easily regarded as "sly," all coupled with a manner of speaking that was too loud and too frank. These fine qualities and others like them resulted in my being informed on a daily basis that I was both a nuisance and a disappointment.”
― Sarah Zettel, Palace of Spies

“His voice was thick. He swiftly brought out another bandage and bound her wrist quickly and competently.
But then, he would be used to such work.”
― Sarah Zettel, For Camelot's Honor

“Should any dire emergency occur, we are to find Mr. Tinderflint's private pavilion by the park pond and plead for his presence promptly, Peggy." She paused to see if I was astonished at all by her alliterative alacrity.

I wasn't.”
― Sarah Zettel, The Assassin's Masque