Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy...it takes a mean author to write a good story.
Gail Carson LevineIt is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.
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 LevineBut what I really long to know you do not tell either: what you feel, although I've given you hints by the score of my regard. You like me. You wouldn't waste time or paper on a being you didn't like. But I think I've loved you since we met at your mother's funeral. I want to be with you forever and beyond, but you write that you are too young to marry or too old or too short or too hungry - until I crumple your letters up in despair, only to smooth them out again for a twelfth reading, hunting for hidden meanings.
Gail Carson Levine