Authors Note Quotes

“This is a work of fiction. Still, given an infinite number of possible worlds, it must be true on one of them. And if a story set in an infinite number of possible worlds is true in one of them, then it must be true in all of them. So maybe, it's not as fictional as we think.”
― Neil Gaiman, InterWorld

“As for whether the magic in The Crown’s Game is real, well . . . that depends. Do you believe in what you cannot see?”
― Evelyn Skye, The Crown's Game

“Dealing with mental health can be lonely and scary and unfortunately there is still so much stigma around mental health which makes getting help even more difficult.
That's why I want you to know that you have nothing to be ashamed of. Accepting help and treatment doesn't make you weak, it makes you strong and brave.
Visit the resources I have listed for you below. It may feel scary and intimidating at first, especially if you have never done it before. But prioritizing your health is of utmost value.
You are important and you deserve to feel loved and happy.
You are not alone.”
― Elicia Roper, All That You Are: a heartwarming and emotional novel

“[referencing that what bothered her about Hansel and Gretel was the weak willed father who let the evil stepmother send the children into the woods not once but twice, and the unease of children reunited happily with their father] : In many ways that unease has guided me through these stories, that note of trouble that I think many of us hear in familiar tales, because we know - even as children - that impossible tasks are an odd way to choose a spouse, that predators come in many guises, that a prince's whims are often cruel. The more I listened to that note of warning, the more inspiration I found.”
― Leigh Bardugo, The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

“Editing is a kind of creative activity where, in a perfect world, an author and an editor find that elusive oneness to understand each other intuitively.”
― Sahara Sanders

“You will have noticed that I didn’t give this story a pat conclusion, and that’s deliberate. Katherine (my wife and frequent coauthor, K. A. Applegate) and I were among the earliest authors to encounter fan fiction via the internet. We’ve embraced it from the start. And some part of me hopes that fanfic writers will carry this story forward. Don’t ask me what happens to these characters next, because I don’t know. Will Dekka find love, perhaps with Simone? Will Cruz and Armo? How will Sam and Astrid do in this terrifying extension of earlier trauma? Maybe you have some ideas. I built the sandbox; if you want to bring your pails and shovels and play in it, cool. It’s one of the best things about writing for young people: you are my collaborators in imagination. If I leave blanks it’s because I know you’ll fill them.”
― Michael Grant, Hero

“While Apicius is full of ancient delicacies such as roasted peacock, boiled sow vulva, testicles, and other foods we would not commonly eat today, there are many others that are still popular, including tapenade, absinthe, flatbreads, and meatballs. There is even a recipe for Roman milk and egg bread that is identical to what we call French toast. And, contrary to popular belief, foie gras was not originally a French delicacy. The dish dates back twenty-five hundred years, and Pliny credits Apicius with developing a version using pigs instead of geese by feeding hogs dried figs and giving them an overdose of mulsum (honey wine) before slaughtering them.”
― Crystal King, Feast of Sorrow

“You can take the girl out of Mississippi but you can't take the Mississippi out of the girl.”
― Kristi Cook, Magnolia

“That is the other thing novelist do. We imagine the world we hope for and endeavor, with the greatest power we have, to bring that world into being.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“What he was asking for was, effectively, a story without all the conflict. Without tension and animosity. Without many of the things I'd been taught were essential to storytelling.
This wasn't a totally new idea to me. I'd already spent 14 years writing a fantasy novel without a single sword-fight, goblin army, or looming apocalypse. I had specifically avoided having a god-lion tortured to death, or farm boys straight-up murk any tyrants or mad wizards. Nobody destroyed anything in a volcano thereby ruining magic forever and making all the elves sad enough to fuck off forever out of the world.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Narrow Road Between Desires

“Maybe we won't have the beauty of a perfect summer. But neither do we have to endure the callousness of an uncaring winter. Instead, we can all look for our own spring- we can discover where God wants to use us. Do you hear the whisper of spring?”
― Jody Hedlund, Unending Devotion

“This is how you cook a novel. Some made up, some real life, all true.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“In Scappi's cookbook we see the first Italian recipes ever published that rely heavily on dairy, particularly butter and cheeses. There are also numerous recipes for pasta. Turkey makes its first appearance in an Italian cookbook. And many of us today are familiar with a recipe first found in L'Opera: zabaglione. The flavors that are prevalent in the cookbook are a little cloying to modern audiences, relying heavily on rosewater, sugar, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. These flavors make sense in the variety of flaky pastries that are described in the book, but can be a little more off-putting when incorporated into a savory pasta dish.”
― Crystal King, The Chef's Secret

“This story takes place on stolen land. While Sorrowland is set in a United States with a speculative and amorphous shape, the geography and settings explored are based on areas traditionally stewarded by the Tonkawa, Caddo Nation, and Lipan Apache in what are colonially known as Central and East Texas, as well as on lands historically, inhabited by various Plains nations with shifting territories, including the Apsáalooke/Crow, Oceti Sakowin/Sioux, and Arapaho, in what settlers have designated Wyoming and Montana. No story of the so-called United States is complete without an understanding of its foundation on genocide and dislocation, nor without acknowledgment of the Indigenous people still here fighting the ongoing occupation.”
― Rivers Solomon, Sorrowland

“what happens when you say no to the one thing everyone expects you to be? what happens when you craft your own future, when you nurture that one strange hobby that nobody knows about, when you give yourself to something that truly makes you happy?”
― Alice Oseman

“To wit: mercury is deadly poisonous.
Hatters really were said to have gone mad in the nineteenth century because of exposure to mercury in their hat-making processes: in effect, they suffered long-term mercury poisoning.
You cannot eat the fish from many rivers and lakes of America even today because of the deadly mercury that lies on their muddy bottoms eternally, the result of toxic industrial pollution.
In this book the Hatter drinks mercury.
You, dear reader, cannot.
It will kill you.


L. Braswell”
― Liz Braswell, Unbirthday

“The term “Romani,” as used in this story, is in some sense an anachronism—in the nineteenth century, Romanies would have been known primarily as “Gypsies” (Cigányok in Hungary). Due to the negative stereotypes attached to the term “Gypsy” and the fact that it stems from a mistaken idea of their origins (it’s a corruption of “Egyptian”), “Roma” or “Romani” has been widely adopted as the preferred form of address. I chose to use “Romani” to acknowledge this preference and to reflect the difference between the way Gábor views his family and friends (and the way Anna comes to) and outsider perspectives. Where “Gypsy” is used, it refers strictly to outsiders’ perspectives of Romani life.”
― Rosalyn Eves, Blood Rose Rebellion

“I'm just a woman out here writing and hoping to change the world one book at a time.”
― Adrienne L. Edwards, My Life Without You

“For students, speaking out against any injustice, especially when adults are involved, can be a formidable task. But it's crucial, life-changing, and perhaps even life saving.

Here is what I hope you, dear reader, know: in darkness, be the light. Let yours be the one that illuminates the world, guided by an unwavering moral compass, courage, compassion, and love. Make your home, your school, your community a place where humanKIND is welcome.”
― Liza Wiemer, The Assignment

“Being queer is hard. But you are beautiful and worthy and amazing exactly as you are...Things are messy sometimes and not always perfect, but you do not have to fit into anyone's box. You are queer enough exactly as you are, and your story is important.”
― Madison Nicole, Not Queer Enough

“Rather than a victim, the book of Esther reveals a woman who battles her worst fears and emerges a confident, purposeful, and wily heroine. She is a queen who wields considerable influence in a vast empire and changes the course of her people's destiny.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Queen's Cook

“An important note about Roxannah's background. In my conversation with Dr. Jessica Sanderson (please see Author Acknowledgements), what became obvious to me was that childhood wounds cause us to break down differently. The same wound can cause one person to break toward control, while another breaks toward fragility. We break toward hyper-vigilance, catastrophic thinking, workaholism, or worthlessness. Our deepest wounds can wear a thousand faces. But The Queen's Cook is a not a book about childhood trauma. It is the story of a woman who through hardship finds friendship, love, and a life-changing relationship with God.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Queen's Cook

“But this is where fact and fiction diverge, because Cecily and Zimmy did have a child, a son, Jeremy, who is my father. Cecily and Zimmy remained happily married for fifty-three years. My grandpa died in 1987; Grandma survived him by nearly two decades. She died peacefully in her sleep, at home, at the age of one hundred, shortly after welcoming her first great-granddaughter into the world (and receiving a birthday card from the queen).
Unlike the eponymous Cecily, in real life, Cecily was good-natured, though she did complain of boredom a lot. She adored art, food, and books and always encouraged me to write. This is not the first time she has been featured in a work of fiction. Prior to Miss Cecily's Recipes for Exceptional Ladies, I published four novels under the pseudonym Stella Newman. In my first, the bestseller, Pear Shaped, the heroine's grandmother is based on Cecily. I suspect she'd have been pleased about that, and even more pleased to be taking center stage now.
I was privileged to have her as a grandmother.”
― Vicky Zimmerman, Miss Cecily's Recipes for Exceptional Ladies