"Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye. "
— Shannon Hale (The Goose Girl)

"I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself."
— Shannon Hale

"I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something that keeps us down."
— Shannon Hale (Princess Academy)

"He had a dashing smile. It nearly dashed right off his face."
— Shannon Hale (Austenland)

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive -- all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment."
— Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)! "
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

". . . I much prefer whining to counting my blessings."
— Mary Ann Shaffer

"I am to cover the philosophical side of the debate and so far my only thought is that reading keeps you from going gaga."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)