Kristin Cashore

“He made her drunk, this man made her drunk; and every time his eyes flashed into hers she could not breathe.”

“It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins”

“Would you please do me the honor of telling me WHAT THE BLAZES IS GOING ON?”

“I’m bored to death. Perhaps I should pillage one of my neighbors for my own amusement. It seems to work for Drowden.”

“For now, Lady Queen," he said, "allow us to continue to obey you. But give us honorable instructions, Lady Queen," he said, turning a flushed face to hers. "Ask us to do honorable things, so that we may have the honor of obeying you.”

“I'm afraid of plenty of things," he said. "I just do them anyway.”

“It has been a hard lesson to learn, that greatness requires suffering.”

“Teddy grinned again. 'Truths are dangerous,' he said. -'Then why are you writing them in a book?'-'To catch them between the pages,' said Teddy, 'and trap them before they disappear.'-'If they're dangerous, why not let them disappear?'-'Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.”

“¿Puedo practicar contigo de vez en cuando, sin correr el riesgo de que te abalances sobre mi y me obligues a quitarme la ropa?”

“Ivan had contrived somehow in the dark of night to replace every watermelon in the watermelon patch with a gravestone, and every gravestone in the engraver's lot with a watermelon”

“You’re crying.”“I’m not.”“Right,” he said mildly. “I suppose you got rained on.”

“Something will happen eventually, and when it does, I'll be bound to wish it hadn't”

“Madlen: 'It's a relief to me, Lady Queen, that in your own pain, you take no interest in hurting yourself.'Bitterblue: 'Why would I? Why should I? It's foolish. I would like to kick the people who do it.'Madlen: 'That would, perhaps, be redundant, Lady Queen.”

“I hear you're supposed to be good at manipulating people. Try a little harder to make me like you, all right? I'm the queen. Your life will be nicer if I like you.”

“Raff,' Katsa said, 'your problem is that your heart's not in it. We need to find something to strengthen your defensive resolve. What if you pretended he's trying to smash your favorite medicinal plant?''The rare blue safflower,' Bann suggested.'Yes,' Katsa said gamely, 'pretend he's after your snaffler.''Bann would never come after my rare blue safflower,' Raffin said distinctly. 'The very notion is absurd.''Pretend he's not Bann. Pretend he's your father.”

“I’m as old as both of you,” she said, even though she suspected shewasn’t, “and I’m smarter, and I can probably fight as well as you can.”

“That was what they did with themselves, those two Gracelings, along with a small band of friends: They stirred up trouble on a serious scale—bribery, coercion, sabotage, organized rebellion—all directed at stopping the worst behavior of the world’s most seriously corrupt kings.”

“In the saddle again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it.”

“How acutely sometimes the presence or absence of people mattered”

“A king who’s innocentof the things of which he’s guilty?”

“Things don't ever stay the same. Natural beginnings come to natural or unnatural ends.”

“Children are geniuses.”

“Not all people who inspire devotion are monsters.”

“Everyone wants a little bit of something beautiful.”

“Some of the smartest men have a hard time comprehending the obvious.”

“No man is infallible.”

“What man can hate or love well when he is drugged?”

“Circumstances don't always align themselves with human intention.”

“There isn't a simple person anywhere in this world.”

“You cannot measure love by a scale of degrees.”

“Men are daft around women, incautious and boastful.”

“The world may be falling to pieces, but at least the lot of us can have a bath.”

“People want incongruous, impossible things.”

“There are no medicines to bring a dead thing back to life.”

“They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed.”

“Why does everybody throw every troublesome thing into the river?”

“That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?”

“I've liked you better when Katsa's around,' Giddon said. 'She's so rotten to me that you seem positively pleasant in contrast.”

“For a group of people who claimed to be concerned for her safety, they did seem to have developed rather a habit of encouraging uprisings against monarchs.”

“I don't understand your book. Isn't every book a book of words?”

“Our own story is even more important for us to know than history.”

“Well, none of it would ever end if she was too afraid for it to begin.”

“Sneaking was a kind of deceit. So was disguise. Just past midnight, wearing dark trousers and Fox's hood, the queen snuck out of her own rooms and stepped into a world of stories and lies.”

“Art glows with faith even in its weakest parts. At every moment, writing is an act of self-confidence – the sheerest, most determined, most stubborn self-belief. You CAN have faith and doubt at the same time; the most insecure writer on the planet has faith that shines just as bright as her doubt, and she deserves props for that. It might be hidden deep, she might not feel it and you might not see it, but it’s in there, or she wouldn’t be able to write.”

“Your face will freeze like that, you know, Kat," Raffin said helpfully to Katsa."Maybe I should rearrange your face, Raff," said Katsa."I should like smaller ears," Raffin offered."Prince Raffin has nice, handsome ears," Helda said, not looking up from her knitting. "As will his children. Your children will have no ears at all, My Lady," she said sternly to Katsa.Katsa stared back at her, flabbergasted."I believe it's more that her ears won't have children," began Raffin, "which, you'll agree, sounds much less—”

“Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely.”

“Raffin appeared again, a floor above her, on the balconied passageway that ran past his workrooms. He leaned over the railing and called down to her. "Kat!""What is it?""You look lost . Have you forgotten the way to your rooms?""I'm stalling.""How long will you be? I'd like to show you a couple of my new discoveries.""I've been told to make myself pretty for dinner."He grinned. "Well in that case, you'll be ages."His face dissolved into laughter, and she tore a button from one of her bags an hurled it at him. He squealed and dropped to the floor, and the button hit the wall right where he'd been standing. When he peeked back over the railing, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, grinning. "I missed on purpose," she said."Show off! Come if you have time." He waved, and turned into his rooms.”

“My life is an apology for the life of my father.”

“Alone with Giddon again, Bitterblue considered him, rather liking the mud streaks on his face. He looked like a handsome sunken rowboat.”

“That was a perfectly reasonable explanation," she said grumpily. "Perhaps my advisers don't lie to me.""Isn't that what you'd want?" asked Giddon."Well, yes, but it doesn't elucidate my puzzle!""If I may say so, Lady Queen," said Giddon, "it's not always easy to follow your conversation.""Oh, Giddon," she said, sighing. "If it's any comfort, I don't follow it either.”