Jacqueline Carey

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“By morning, Joscelin was resigned. "You know, betimes I think you are a little mad, Imriel no Montreve," he said to me in the courtyard outside the stable, holding the Bastard's reins."You never said that to Phedre," I reminded him."Ah, well." He grinned despite himself. "In her case, there is no question.”

“„To, co se podvolí, není vždycky slabé.”

“Alas for we who are mortal, and are denied the luxury of dramatic license. We mus live, and go onward.”

“We are alike, Joscelin and I, in that what we do, we do very well.”

“And Kushiel sends no punishment that we are not fit to bear.”

“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.”

“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.”

“How do you want to die, Admiral? We are D'Angeline. At the hand of numbers, or dreams?”

“Greet the sky and live, blossom!... Yet even as the wind stirs your petals, flowers fall. My flowers are eternal, my songs live forever. I lift them in offering; I, a singer. I cast them to the wind, I spill them. The flowers become gold, they come to dwell inside the palace of eternity.”

“Soon never comes soon enough to a young child.”

“I have seen the impossible. I have seen great and terrible wonders, and I tell you, the world is a vaster and stranger place than ever I had reckoned.”

“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!”

“Those that yield are not always weak”

“I seek words of such surpassing beauty that they might melt the hardest heart of stone.”

“As ever, his grief made my heart ache. "Ambition is a dangerous thing," I murmured. "One can harbor it unknowing, only to find it sparked into life when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Our eyes met. We had so very many shared memories between us, Bao and I. Some were wonderous, and some were terrible. Some were both.”

“The gods use their chosen hard, but reveal little to them.”

“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.”

“Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently.”

“For every victory there is a price.”

“Some chains are forged for us - those are the hardest to bear.”

“The harp sounds at each passing breeze, but that does not mean the tune is masterfully played.”

“What is fear but courage's shadow?”

“Truly, it is in loss that we learn a thing's true value.”

“Io sono Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève, e sono unica.”

“C'è perspicacia nella follia.”

“Ma al di sopra di tutto c'è l'amore. E se desideriamo essere più che umani, è quella la stella che dobbiamo seguire.”

“Quando l'Amore mi ha scacciata, è stata la Crudeltà ad avere pietà di me.”

“Non sempre chi accondiscende è debole.”

“Avevo Joscelin, il mio Compagno Perfetto, la bussola su cui era fisso il mio cuore.”

“Non c'è appagamento che non sia reso più dolce dal protrarsi del desiderio.”

“Are you a minor character in my tale, or am I a lesser figure in yours?”

“Sidonie, I know you don't remember it, but you once promised to trust me beyond all reason. And I swear to you that all that I am, all that I possess, including this gem-stone, is yours. I need you. I can't do this alone. Forget your memories. Look into your heart. And if you can find somewhere there, some lingering spark of trust that owes naught to reason, I beg you to speak the word written here.”

“Her always is mine”

“A little truth seasons a lie like salt.”

“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.”

“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. ”

“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. ”

“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.”

“All knowledge is worth having.”

“Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. ”

“When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me”

“One must gauge one's trust carefully.”

“To recongnize that the treachery of one member of a house does not taint all born within it”

“Stupid to speak of blame when the wills of the immortals are involved.”

“There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme”