Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking ears will not hear
Pain obliterates everything else. In pain, there is only the eternal present.
We speak of stories ending, when in truth it is we who end. The stories go on and on.
I wish sometimes that the gods would either choose better, or make their wishes clearer
It is not everyday that one learns an entire militia has sworn unbeknownest to obey you
Stand at the crossroads if you will, but if you'll not choose, I'll move on without you
This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.
True friendship must be akin to romance, I think. only without all the anguish and anxiety.
To recongnize that the treachery of one member of a house does not taint all born within it
The harp sounds at each passing breeze, but that does not mean the tune is masterfully played.
We are meant to taste of life ... and drink the cup of it to the dregs, bitter and sweet alike.
What's the point of being a grown-up if you can't indulge the kid inside you every now and then?
Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently.
Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?
If I had to fall from Cassiel's grace, at least I know it took a courtesan worthy of Kings to do it.
There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme
Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel.
Having a literary agent makes a huge difference in submitting work. My agent has access and tremendous passion.
It is my observations, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others
Battle for the sake of honor may be a fine thing for bards to sing of, but it is no way to preserve one's homeland
It is a comfort, in anguish, to be reminded of the scale of one's own troubles against the mighty breadth of the world.
We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.
Like a falling star, he descended on the Tarbh Cró, a Cassiline berserker, his sword biting and slashing like a silver snake.
Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.
Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake.
There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.
And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.
I don't really consider my work, on the whole, 'fringe' in my own mind; science fiction and fantasy have been pretty solidly in the mainstream for a while.
It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.
I have always loved fantasy; I think probably stepping through the wardrobe with Lucy in C.S. Lewis's 'Narnia Chronicles' was my first exposure when I was really little.
Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes?
Love child!" What else? You will find it and lose it, again and again. And with each finding and each loss, you will become more than before. What you make of it is yours to choose.
We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.
There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong in comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.
For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always. These events, so distant in legend, play a part in shaping the very events we witness about us, each and every day.
When I started really writing fantasy, one of the things I noticed was a real absence of sexuality in the genre at all. And it's such a profound part of the human experience that it's a really big thing to leave out.
I started a novel in the back of a notebook, and it was great because it looked like I was taking notes. And I just, I kept it up, it was sort of fantasy, it was part soap opera. It was utterly dreadful, but that's how I got hooked.
It is a fine line, in all of us, between civilization and savagery. To any who think they would never cross it, I can only say, if you have never known what it is to be utterly betrayed and abandoned, you cannot know how close it is.
We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.
It's the same questions we ask of our existence, and the answer is always the same. The mystery lies not in the question nor the answer, but in the asking and answering themselves, over and over again, and the end is engendered in the beginning.
That was the problem ... with trusting to the written word ... We were human, mortal and fallible. We forgot, we made errors, argued ambiguities, and twisted meanings to suit our own ends. And in doing so, mayhap we reshaped the gods themselves.
It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.
Joscelin, is love supposed to make you feel like you’re sick and dying, and mad enough to hit someone and drunk with joy, and your heart’s a boulder n your chest trying to burst into a thousand pieces all at once?” “Mm-hmm.” He finished his ale. “That would be love.
There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation on a theme. So musicians say the greatest sonatas are composed; whether or not it is true, I do not know, but of a surety I have seen it emerge in the tapestry of my life.
I would that I could have stopped time and preserved that day forever. It was a perfect day. There was the shadow of sorrow, yes. It would always be there. But that was the nature of life. The bright mirror and the dark, reflecting one another. And today there was so much brightness.
To my surprise, Joscelin rose. ‘Phedre-’ He began, then halted. Sitting below him, I watched him smile to himself, quiet and private. ‘Phedre yields with a willow’s grace,’ he said softly. ‘And endures with the strength of mountains. Without her, life would be calm; and yet lack all meaning.
I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love. It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss. Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
Whip us 'till we're on the floor, we'll turn around and ask for more, we're Phèdre's Boys! We like to hurt, we like to bleed, daily floggings do we need, we're Phèdre's Boys! Man or woman, we don't care, give us twins we'll take the pair! We're Phèdre's Boys! ...But just because we let you beat us, doesn't mean you can defeat us, we're Phèdre's Boys!
I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand.
There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.