Briar Rose Quotes

“Once we have accepted the story, we cannot escape the story's fate.”
― P.L. Travers

“She married the prince
and all went well
except for the fear —
the fear of sleep.

Briar Rose
was an insomniac...
She could not nap
or lie in sleep
without the court chemist
mixing her some knock-out drops
and never in the prince's presence.”
― Anne Sexton, Transformations

“Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.”
― Anne Sexton, Transformations

“Rose. Briar Rose. She was named after a flower that was thorny and green and strong and beautiful, with moments of unbelievable softness in white and pink.”
― Liz Braswell, Once Upon a Dream

“Standing before the ring, I swayed to the music. My hands lifted and moved to the same rhythm. My fingers flexed and danced, tracing out a series of gestures.”
― K.S. Trenten, Fairest

“Briar Rose, the golden-haired one called herself. She continually drew Maleficent's attention, making her helplessly flinch, like at the first light of dawn.
Which was appropriate. Given her true name. A name she did not know.
Aurora.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“So it stunned Briar silent when Köning handed her a list that had been decided on by all the vassals, debated over in a prior meeting and compiled so they agreed on her best qualities.
Self-assured
Thoughtful
Passionate
Envisions a peaceful future for the empire
And the one that set her mind spinning, dazed:
Fearless
She looked up at the vassals. "Truly?"
Köning, already shuffling through a stack of parchment for his next set of notes, half looked at her. "Which one, Your Majesty?"
All of them.
They saw her this way?
They barely knew her. They had only seen her in passing these few weeks, had only interacted with her on the periphery. So were these attributes truly hers, or were they things her vassals hoped she could emulate?
Fauna, who hovered just behind Briar's chair, placed a hand on her shoulder. "You have displayed all these traits in your time here, Rose," she whispered softly. "They honor you by recognizing what you are."
She used the name that Briar's aunts had called her by. That only Briar's aunts had called her by. Briar Rose had been her full name, but Frieda had thought Briar sounded more interesting, thorny and sharp, and so Briar had acquiesced to being Briar because she had been about six and had wanted so desperately to be interesting.
But she realized, hearing Fauna say Rose now, that the split of who she was had happened even earlier than she had realized. As a child, she had been Briar to some and Rose to her aunts and Briar Rose to even more---
Had there ever been a time in her life when she had simply existed?
Briar sat down the paper with her best qualities, eyes blurring as she read it over, and over.
Were these the traits of Briar?
Or of Aurora?
Which would best win empress?”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“Peasant to princess to queen to empress.
To spring from the first to the second was an act of God. To leap all four in a single year--- it was impossible.
And yet here she was, living her impossible life, Briar Rose the peasant bard, Aurora the princess, some new furious woman the queen.
What version of her would rise up once she became empress?
How many different versions of one person could she hold within her body until she broke from the strain?”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“My time living in Hausach was idyllic, actually." Thoughtfulness swept over her, and her smile became truer. "Idyllic and quaint. Certainly not always free of struggle, but it gave me a view of my country I would not have otherwise. Would that all of Austria--- indeed, all of the empire--- could be idyllic and quaint, and free of struggle. That is the goal we all work toward as leaders, is it not?”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“But tonight's event, at least, was more Briar's style. Even if she would not be one of the bards playing, she knew this atmosphere, how to command a room, as her vassals said; how to perform. Something about this ball was so much more in line with who she was, despite every event demanding performance. Here, Briar could imagine the crowd was an audience; here, she could pretend she was in control.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“She was here, fighting to be empress. Facing the ghosts of her past. Yes, she still had moments of doubt and indecision. Yes, she still wrestled with her instincts versus the choices advised. But she was making choices, learning from those choices, and growing. She was taking pieces from each mistake and each horror and all of the people in her inner circle, and she was evolving.
She wasn't the old Briar Rose anymore. She hadn't been for a long, long while. Yet neither was she this new Queen Aurora.
Perhaps all these labels only hindered her. Perhaps it was far easier than they had all made it out to be.
Perhaps she was simply Briar, and what that means could change daily.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“She would be crowned empress this morning.
She smiled, watching her reflection in the mirror, seeing a glimmer of the peasant bard in the crook of her grin, but the composure of a princess, too, and the stature of a queen, for however short a time she had been each.
There was no looming shadow behind her, no waiting other self who might swoop out and consume her. Going forward, she knew she would be a balance of these pieces, somehow, some way.
She could be many things all at once.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“Because the future that lay before her would indeed be one of unity and peace, starting here, with those she loved. Anything they built on this foundation could only be good and true and right.
It could only be the stuff of dreams.”
― Sara Raasch, A Sword In Slumber

“There grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard,
And white are the blossoms on't in our kail-yard.”
― Ian Maclaren, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush