Dealing with Dragons 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

“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

“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

“But he isn't my lover, or my fiancé, or my boyfriend or anything, and I refuse to be killed with him.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Tis my will that thou and he shall die by my hand. Thou hast but to choose the manner of thy death.” “Old age,” Cimorene said promptly. “Mock”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“The last dragon was apparently still too young to have made up its mind which sex it wanted to be; it didn't have any horns at all.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“From what I’d written in “The Improper Princess” and from the history I’d given in Talking to Dragons, I already knew the general outline of her adventures, which, again, required someone smart, practical, and sure of herself. Explaining this occasionally confounds people who think that I wrote Cimorene as some sort of feminist statement about what women can achieve. I find their surprise hard to understand. My real-life family and friends are full of women like Cimorene, from my twin cousins, who have been fur trappers in the Alaskan bush for most of their lives, to my mother, who became an engineer long before women’s liberation officially opened “nontraditional careers” to women, to my grandmothers, aunts, and cousins, who were office managers, farmers, nurses, nuns, geologists, and bookkeepers, among other things. None of these women takes any guff from anyone. They aren’t proving a point about what women could, should, or can do; they are ignoring that whole question (which none of them considers a question worth asking at all) and getting on with doing the things that interest them most.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“I keep forgetting that you're not as empty headed as most princesses.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“We have made the perilous journey through the caves to see the princess Cimorene, newly come to these caverns, to comfort her and together bemoan our sad and sorry fate," the first princess said haughtily. "Tell her we are here."

"I'm Cimorene," Cimorene said. "I don't need comforting, and I'm not particularly sad or sorry to be here, but if you'd like to come in and have some tea, you're welcome.”
― Patricia C. Wrene, Dealing with Dragons

“Oh!" said Cimorene. She had never met a talking frog before. "Are you an enchanted prince?" she asked a little doubtfully.
"No, but I've met a couple of them, and after a while you pick up a few things," said the frog.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Thanking all her lucky stars individually and by name, Cimorene twisted and scrambled to her feet, sword ready.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“You must have misunderstood,” Keredwel said severely. “No one volunteers to be a dragon’s princess. It isn’t done.” “Actually, Alianora’s quite right,” Cimorene said as she set the teacups in front of her visitors. “I did volunteer.” She smiled sweetly at the thunderstruck expressions on the faces of the first two princesses. “I got tired of embroidery and etiquette.” Keredwel”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Cimorene tilted her head to one side, considering. "I think I'm glad you didn't win."

"Oh? Why is that?" Kazul sounded amused.

"Because you wouldn't have had any use for a princess if you were the Queen of the Dragons, and if you hadn't decided to take me on, that yellow-green dragon Moranz would probably have eaten me," Cimorene explained.

"You mean, if I were the King of the Dragons," Kazul corrected her. "Queen of the Dragons is a dull job."

"But you're a female!" Cimorene said. "If you'd carried Colin's Stone from the Ford of Whispering Snakes to the Vanishing Mountain, you'd have had to be a queen, wouldn't you?"

"No, of course not," Kazul said. "Queen of the Dragons is a totally different job from King, and it's not one I'm particularly interested in. Most people aren't. I think the position's been vacant since Oraun tore his wing and had to retire."

"But King Tokoz is a male dragon!" Cimorene said, then frowned. "Isn't he?"

"Yes, yes, but that has nothing to do with it," Kazul said a little testily.

"'King' is the name of the job. It doesn't matter who holds it."

Cimorene stopped and thought for a moment. "You mean that dragons don't care whether their king is male or female; the title is the same no matter who the ruler is."

"That's right. We like to keep things simple."

"Oh.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“Thank goodness that's over," she said, taking the crown off and throwing it across the cave. It hit the wall and bounced off with a harsh clang.
"You shouldn't treat your crown like that, Your Majesty," Cimorene said, retrieving the iron circlet.
"Of course I should," Kazul said. "It's expected. That's why we made it out of iron instead of something soft and bendable. ...”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“What-no!" Zemenar cried in horror as he began to melt. "Not soapsuds! It's demeaning."
"There's a little lemon juice in it, too," Alianora offered.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“It's because I'm not a very satisfactory princess," Alianora said. "I tried, I really did, but... It started when the wicked fairy came to my christening."
"She put a curse on you?"
"No, she ate cake and ice cream until she nearly burst and danced with my Uncle Arthur until two in the morning and had a wonderful time. So she went home without cursing me, and Aunt Ermintrude says that that's where the whole problem started.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“She had hoped it would be at least a little longer before the knights started coming back, so she couldn’t help sighing as she stuck a leather bookmark in the book and closed it. Then she went out to argue with whoever it was until they went away.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“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

“We have made the perilous journey through the tunnels to see the Princess Cimorene, newly come to these caverns, to comfort her and together bemoan our sad and sorry fates,” the first princess said haughtily. “Tell her we are here.” “I’m Cimorene,” Cimorene said. “I don’t need comforting, and I’m not particularly sad or sorry to be here, but if you’d like to come in and have some tea, you’re welcome to.” The”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“It certainly does," the escort dragon said. "It said all, and I meant all. If I'd meant 'all the humans,' I'd have said 'all the humans,' or maybe 'some of you' or 'you over there' or 'all you non-dragons' or --”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“with”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons

“And what do you expect us to do about it?" one of the voices asked curiously.

"I don't know," Cimorene said. "Except, of course, that I would rather not be eaten. I can't see who you are in this dark, you know."

"That can be fixed," said the voice. A moment later, a small ball of light appeared in the air above Cimorene's head. Cimorene stepped backward very quickly and ran into the wall.

The voices belonged to dragons.

Five of them lay on or sprawled over or curled around the various rocks and columns that filled the huge cave where Cimorene stood. Each of the males (there were three) had two short, stubby, sharp-looking horns on either side of their heads; the female dragon had three, one on each side and one in the center of her forehead. The last dragon was apparently still too young to have made up its mind which sex it wanted to be; it didn't have any horns at all.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, Dealing with Dragons