No sign of pleasure greeted the announcement. The mood in the hall was leaden. My mood was livelier. Fright is livelier than lead.
Gail Carson LevineI wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that. And I meditate, and one time when I was meditating, I started thinking, "Gee Gail, you love stories -- you read all the time. How come you never tell yourself a story?" While I should have been saying my mantra to myself, I started telling myself a story. It turned out to be an art appreciation book for kids with reproductions of famous artworks and pencil drawings that I did. I tried to get it published and was rejected wholesale.
Gail Carson LevineI was no hero. The dearest wishes of my heart were for safety and tranquility. The world was a perilous place, wrong for the likes of me.
Gail Carson LevineI had to share a room with my sister, who is five and a half years older than I am. We didn't get along well, and I felt that I had no privacy. So books were my privacy, because no one could join me in a book, no one could comment on the action or make fun of it. I used to spend hours reading in the bathroom -- and we only had one bathroom in our small apartment!
Gail Carson Levine