Kristin Cashore

“His name was Death. It was pronounced to rhyme with "teeth", but Bitterblue liked to mispronounce it by accident on occassion.”

“Ideas were growing in all directions and dimensions; they were becoming a sculpture, or a castle. And then everyone left her, to return to their own affairs; and she was alone, and empty and unbelieving again.”

“Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's.”

“Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and then rescue him.”

“Everybody was strange. In a fit of frustration, she scratched out strange and wrote the word CRACKPOTS in big letters.”

“Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself.”

“She crossed the room to him, put her arms around him, clung to him, turning her face to the side, learning all at once that it was awkward to show a person all of one's love when one's nose was broken.”

“Katsa turned to Po with tears in her eyes. 'He'll be so angry.''He won't stay angry forever.''Won't he?' she said. 'People do sometimes.''Do they?' he said. 'Reasonable people? I hope that's not true.'Katsa gave him a funny look, but didn't answer. Resumed hugging herself and kicking things.”

“Danzhol. The one with the marriage proposal and the objections to the town charter in central Monsea. "Bacon," Bitterblue muttered. "Bacon!" she repeated, then carefully made her way up the spiral stairs.”

“She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth.”

“Tess had said that the river was liable to wash the palace and the city and the whole kingdom off the rocks, and then there would finally be peace in the world."Peace in the world," Brigan repeated musingly when Fire told him. "I suppose she's right. That would bring peace to the world. But it's not likely to happen, so I suppose we'll have to keep blundering on and making a mess of it.""Oh," Fire said, "well put. We'll have to pass that on to the governor so he can use it in his speech when they dedicate the new bridge.”

“Why are you still here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be in a cave somewhere inspiring people?”

“Nash sighed and gave her back her hand. He tilted his face up to the stars. "We're going to win this war, you know," he said, "now that our army's together. But the world doesn't care who wins. It'll go on spinning, no matter how many people are slaughtered tomorrow. No matter if you and I are slaughtered." After a moment, he added, "I almost wish it wouldn't, if we aren't allowed to go on spinning with it.”

“It's not fair. It's not fair," she cried, knowing it was a child's argument but not caring, because being childish did not make it untrue.”

“Como no te has dado cuenta de que tus ojos me atrapan igual que te ocurre a ti con los míos”

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”

“...when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.”

“Bacon improved things dramatically.”

“The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know.”

“Part of avoiding thoughts about something was not encouraging opportunities for that something to makes itself felt.”

“And of course she understood now why her body wanted to run whenever he appeared. It was a correct instinct, for there was nothing to be got from this but sadness.”

“If she was suggesting she was too wise with the weight of her experience to fall prey to infatuation - well, the disproof was sitting before her in the form of a gray-eyed prince with a thoughtful set to his mouth that she found quite distracting.”

“She had thought she'd already reached her capacity for pain and had no room inside her for more. But she remembered having told Archer once that you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upwards, and, just when you'd thought you'd reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of other people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her.”

“You're beautiful this morning," Archer said, stopping before her, kissing her nose. "You're impossibly sweet in my shirt."That might be but she felt like death. She would gladly make the trade; how blissful it would be to feel impossibly sweet and look like death.”

“It was when she returned to him, chilled & clearheaded, that it happened. He sat against the tree, his knees bent & his head in his hands. His shoulders slumped. Tired, unhappy. Something tender caught in her breath at the sight of him. And then he raised his eyes and looked at her, and she saw what she had not seen before. She gasped.His eyes were beautiful. His face was beautiful to her in every way, and his shoulders and hands. And his arms that hung over his knees, and his chest that was not moving, because he held his breath as he watched her. And the heart in his chest. This friend. How had she not seen this before? How had she not seen him? She was blind. And then tears choked her eyes, for she had not asked for this. She had not asked for this beautiful man before her, with something hopeful in his eyes that she did not want.”

“Roen snorted. "You two have the strangest relationship in the Dells."Archer smiled slightly. "She won't consent to make it a marriage.""I can't imagine what's stopping her. I don't suppose you've considered being less munificent with your love?""Would you marry me, Fire, if I slept in no one's bed but yours?"He knew the answer to that, but it didn't hurt to remind him. "No, and I should find my bed quite cramped.”

“Archer, is there a servant girl in my fortress you haven't taken to bed? I announce you're leaving and within minutes two of them are at each other's throats, and another is crying her eyes out in the scullery. Honestly. You've been here all of nine days."- Roen, "Fire”

“If I wanted to stun anyone at dinner, I'd hit them in the face.”

“She would like to restrain from cruelty and receive no admiration for it.”

“I was doing science," Giddon said. "He threw a bean.""I was testing the impact of a bean upon water," Bann said."That's not even a real thing.""Perhaps I'll test the impact of a bean upon your beautiful white shirt.”

“I thought it was supposed to be impossible to sneak up on you. Eyes of a hawk and ears of a wolf and all.”

“He was handsome, like Po, and confident, like Po, and so much more authoritative in his bearing than Po could ever be. But - this Katsa came gradually to understand - he was not drunk on his power. He might never dream of helping a sailor to haul a rope, but he would stand with the sailor interestedly while the sailor hauled the rope, and ask him questions about the rope, about his work, his home, his mother and father, his cousin who spent a year once in the lakes of Nander. It struck Katsa that there was a thing she'd never encountered: a king who looked at his people, instead of looking over their heads, a king who saw outside himself.”

“I'll teach you how to defend yourself, how to maim a man. We can use Po as a model.''Wonderful,' Po said. 'It's quite boring really, the way you beat me to death with your hands and feet, Katsa. It'll be refreshing to have you come at me with a knife.”

“She couldn't steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again - belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person.”

“She groped forward, hands and feet, in search of darkness, distance and solitude.”

“And the kings were no better to their own people than they were to each others.”

“Then she'll know I'll want to knock her senseless if she so much as looks at me.”

“Normal. She wasn't normal. A girl Graced with killing, a royal thug? A girl who didn't want the husbands Randa pushed on her, perfectly handsome and thoughtful men, a girl who panicked at the thought of a baby at her breast, or clinging to her ankles.”

“Tell me what I can do to help you feel better."Well...I always like when you kiss me..."Do you?"You're good at it. "Well, that's lucky. Because I'll always be kissing you.”

“I push everyone I love away." He shrugged. "I don't mind you pushing me away if it means you love me, little sister.”

“I know this is war, but the rest of us are trying to pretend it's a party.”

“Waste is Criminal.”

“How unjust then to meet that person you love, and be kept away from them only because ones bed is made of hay , and the other, feathers.”

“Then I'm sorry I don't remember more. If we kew a person was going to die, we'd hold harder to the memories.”

“Y cuando me haya marchado, deberás confiar en mí, como deberia hacer cualquier persona que no poseyera tu gracia, y como yo hago siempre contigo." Katsa”

“For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it will be insufferable crap, until the very last moment, when you figure out how to fix it and everything comes together.”

“It's as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus.”

“Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.”

“The only way for you to keep your mind straight is to run from those who would confuse you.”

“It was a strange monster, for beneath its exterior it was frightened and sickened by its own violence. It chastised itself for its savagery. And sometimes it had no heart for violence and rebelled against it utterly.”