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“Here are the things girls die of: hunger, disease, accidents, childbirth, and violence. It takes more than heartache to kill a girl. Girls are tough as rocks.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“This is a dark tale. A grim tale.
It's a tale from another time, a time when wolves waited for girls in the forest, beasts paced the halls of cursed castles, and witches lurked in gingerbread houses with sugar-kissed roofs.
That time is long gone.
But the wolves are still here and twice as clever. The beasts remain. And death still hides in a dusting of white.
It's grim for any girl who loses her way.
Grimmer still for a girl her loses herself.
Know that it's dangerous to stray from the path.
But it's far more dangerous not to.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“Mortals aren't born strong, they become strong.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“Can't you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“I need a name for this ink ... A name for the feeling you get when you see someone again. After many years. Someone lost to you. Or so you thought. And you remember them a certain way. In your mind, they never age. But then suddenly, there they are. Older. Changed by time. Different, but exactly the same.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“What's done is done. Whether to you, or by you, and you cannot change it.
But what's not done is not done.
And there, both hope and hazard lie.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“Once upon always and never again, in an ancient city by the sea, three sisters worked by candlelight.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

“Then the stars turned their attention to the younger children of the family. The ones who hadn’t grown up yet. The stars knew what was coming, who was lurking. They always did. They’d seen it all before, countless times, across vast, green oceans and ethereal night skies. They recognized the tiny, sparkling glow, nearly hidden in the wise old oak tree sprawling above the Roberts-Darlings’ backyard. They recognized the crouched, shadowy figures within its branches. The stars weren’t the only spectators closely observing Lily, Wendy, and Michael.”
― Cynthia Leitich Smith, Sisters of the Neversea

“It’s bad enough that we tell jokes about our mothers-in-law. But we tell horror stories about our stepmothers. It was a stepmother who forced Cinderella to stay home with her head up a chimney while her grody stepsisters went to the ball. It was a stepmother who sent Hansel and Gretel into the forest with a pocketful of breadcrumbs.”
― Daisy L. Stewart, Stepfathers Are People Too