NEF

“Rosie hated her curly golden hair. When she was old enough to hold minimal conversations, the itsy-bitsy-cutesycoo sort of grown-ups would pull the soft ringlets gently and tell her what a pretty little girl she was. She would stare at this sort of grown-up and say, “I am not pretty. I am intelligent. And brave.” The grown-ups usually thought this was darling, which only made her angry, perhaps partly because she was speaking the truth, although it was tricky to differentiate between “brave” and “foolhardy” at three or four years old.”
― Robin McKinley, Spindle's End

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re sane? That you’ve always been sane? That perhaps you’re the sanest person in the city?"

"I hope not," whispered Neverfell. "Because, if I’m sane, then there’s something wrong with Caverna, something horrible and sick, and nobody else has noticed. If I’m sane, then we shouldn’t be sitting around talking – we should all be clawing our way out as fast as we can."

"Oh, I don’t think she’d like that," the Kleptomancer remarked, with a hint of affection in his voice. "She needs us. Without us, there is no her, after all. She is the city, not the tunnels, and so she does everything she can to keep us down here. Sometimes I even wonder whether it is only possible to create True Delicacies here because she gives them their power, as a bribe to stop us leaving. When the Grand Steward declared that nobody was allowed to enter or leave the city, I believe he became her chosen beloved. I will tell you something else, though I cannot prove it. The city grows, and not just through the effort of pick and shovel. She has been stretching, spreading and contorting to make room for us all, and I think that is why geography no longer makes sense.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass

“It is a small thing, yes, but on small things hinge the turning of the world. Very rarely does the opportunity come to stand up against torture and evildoing - or for justice and equality - in the grand gestures most of us dream of. On the other hand, the opportunity to stand up against a small injustice, or for a small truth or a small good, comes nearly every day.”
― Victoria Goddard, The Hands of the Emperor

“It is terribly bad form to admit to being terrified for one’s life, but nobody in their right mind would go to a Court banquet without making preparations. One must have the right costume, the right Faces, and at least eighty-two ways of avoiding assassination.”
― Frances Hardinge, A Face Like Glass