Patricia C. Wrede > Quotes

“Well,” said the frog, “what are you going to do about it?”

“Marrying Therandil? I don’t know. I’ve tried talking to my parents, but they won’t listen, and neither will Therandil.”

“I didn’t ask what you’d said about it,” the frog snapped. “I asked what you’re going to do. Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Nine times out of ten, talking is a way of avoiding doing things.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“The efficiency of the cleaning solution in liquefying wizards suggested the operation of an antithetical principal,which-"
"Did you have to get him started?" Cimorene asked reproachfully.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Calling on Dragons

“Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nodcocks!”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Magician's Ward

“Then they gave me a loaf of bread and told me to walk through the forest and give some to anyone who asked. I did exactly what they told me, and the second beggar-woman was a fairy in disguise, but instead of saying that whenever I spoke, diamonds and roses would drop from my mouth, she said that since I was so kind, I would never have any problems with my teeth.”
“Really? Did it work?”
“Well, I haven’t had a toothache since I met her.”
“I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“You're always in the kitchen," Alianora said when she poked her head through the door a moment later. "Or the library. Don't you ever do anything but cook and read?”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“No proper princess would come out looking for dragons," Woraug objected.

"Well I'm not a proper princess then!" Cimorene snapped. "I make cherries jubillee and I volunteer for dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs-- or at least I would if anyone would let me. So there!”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Mendanbar took a deep breath. “You could stay here. At the castle, I mean. With me.” This wasn’t coming out at all the way he had wanted it to, but it was too late to stop now. He hurried on, “As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, if you think you would like that. I would.”
“Would you, really?”
“Yes,” Mendanbar said, looking down. “I love you, and—and—”
“And you should have said that to begin with,” Cimorene interrupted, putting her arms around him.
Mendanbar looked up, and the expression on her face made his heart begin to pound.
“Just to be sure I have this right,” Cimorene went on with a blinding smile, “did you just ask me to marry you?”
“Yes,” Mendanbar said. “At least, that’s what I meant.”
“Good. I will.”
Mendanbar tried to find something to say, but he was too happy to think. He leaned forward two inches and kissed Cimorene, and discovered that he didn’t need to say anything at all.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons

“In short, if we wish to see anything sensible done about the situation, we will clearly have to do it ourselves.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

“That is certainly one way to look at the matter. There are others.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Thirteenth Child

“You can't force folks to have good sense, even if they're family. Maybe especially then.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Across the Great Barrier

“Well, it doesn't sound particularly noble and knightly to say you've rescued the Chief Cook and Librarian, does it? And it has cut down on the number of interruptions. I used to get two or three knights a day, and now there's only about one a week. And the ones who do come are at least smart enough to figure out that I'm still a princess even if the dragons call me Chief Cook”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons

“Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, A Matter of Magic

“Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you'd rather not.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Across the Great Barrier

“The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know— dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette. There was a great deal of etiquette, from the proper way to curtsy before a visiting prince to how loudly it was permissible to scream when being carried off by a giant. (...)

Cimorene found it all very dull, but she pressed her lips together and learned it anyway. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she would go down to the castle armory and bully the armsmaster into giving her a fencing lesson. As she got older, she found her regular lessons more and more boring. Consequently, the fencing lessons became more and more frequent.

When she was twelve, her father found out.

“Fencing is not proper behavior for a princess,” he told her in the gentle-but-firm tone recommended by the court philosopher.

Cimorene tilted her head to one side. “Why not?”

“It’s ... well, it’s simply not done.”

Cimorene considered. “Aren’t I a princess?”

“Yes, of course you are, my dear,” said her father with relief. He had been bracing himself for a storm of tears, which was the way his other daughters reacted to reprimands.

“Well, I fence,” Cimorene said with the air of one delivering an unshakable argument. “So it is too done by a princess.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“They always do the same thing - come in, ask for a meal, hide, and then run off with a harp or a bag full of money the minute I fall asleep,' Dobbilan said. 'And they're always named Jack. Always. We've lived in this castle for twenty years, and every three months, regular as clockwork, one of those boys shows up, and there's never been a Tom, Dick, or Harry among 'em. Just Jacks. The English have no imagination.”
― Patricia Wrede, Searching for Dragons

“I most certainly can deny it. Of course, if I did, I'd be lying." Mairelon”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Magician's Ward

“I loved getting my M. B. A., and I really enjoyed being an accountant and financial analyst before I quit my day job twenty-five years ago to write full time. I just liked writing more…plus, I knew even then that as a full-time writer, I'd get plenty of chances to do business-type stuff, while as an accountant, I probably wouldn't get a lot of opportunities to write about dragons.”
― Patricia C. Wrede

“This is the most important lesson you must learn about magic," Miss Ochiba went on. "There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. You will also place limits on the kinds of spells you can cast, as well as their strength. To be a good magician, you must see in many ways. You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Thirteenth Child

“There is nothing that is quite so reassuring in an awkward situation as knowing that one is well turned-out, and while I hope I am not so fainthearted as to require such stratagems, I am not so foolish as to overlook their value.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

“If you're going to be rude, do it for a reason and get something from it.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Talking to Dragons

“Out here, it's better safe than sorry, because generally speaking, too much of the time sorry means you're dead.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Across the Great Barrier

“Of course it doesn't make sense." Lady Wendall said. "The rules of society rarely do.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Magician's Ward

“Well?' Jasper said when Mairelon did not reply. 'Who are you?'
'No, no,' Mairelon said. 'I asked you first. I also, if you recall, asked how you found this place and what you intend to do here, and you haven't told me that, either.'
'We might ask you the same thing,' Jasper retorted.
'You might, but I don't recommend it,' Mairelon said. 'You'll get a reputation as a poor conversationalist if you all can do is repeat what other people say to you.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Mairelon the Magician

“He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a sidelong look, the one that meant he was so sure you were wrong that he could just wait and let you find out for yourself the hard way.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Thirteenth Child

“I'm sorry. I'm used to people objecting to things because they think I can't do them or shouldn't do them. It didn't occur to me that you might have a real reason.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Searching for Dragons

“News of Daniel's disappearance does not alarm me as it might have done a week ago. Given recent events, very little alarms me as it might have done a week ago. I feel as if my supply of alarm has been exhausted, at least temporarily.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, The Mislaid Magician; or, Ten Years After

“It's been three years since I graduated, and everyone's still waiting for me to do something spectacular," the stone prince said, lengthening his stride. "The rest of my classmates are already making names for themselves. George started killing dragons right away, and Art went straight home and pulled some sort of magic sword out of a rock. Even the ones nobody expected to amount to much have done something. All Jack wanted to do was go back to his mother's farm and raise beans, and he ended up stealing a magic harp and killing a giant and all sorts of things. I'm the only one who hasn't succeeded.”
― Patricia C. Wrede

“It took us most of the morning to put together the letter she sent to the Frontier Management Department, and I learned a lot about how to be frigidly polite and still leave somebody feeling like they'd been spanked.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, The Far West