Sharon Shinn

“Maybe I should keep you in a walled garden so you can't ever leave.'The image this conjured up was so vivid that for a moment he couldn't think how to answer. He glanced down at her, his mouth open as if to speak, but no words came out. The truth was, he thought, feeling humble, feeling stupid, he didn't think he would mind any more than the raelynx did being kept in perpetual service to the princess. 'Men generally don't make very good pets,' he said at last, and she went off in a peal of laughter.”

“How did they find out?" Donnal inquired. "Did you set them on fire?""You know, it's so rare that I actually do that, and yet that's always the first question anyone asks me." -Senneth”

“You have not traveled enough," she said. "Or you'd know that every journeymakes its own map across your heart.”

“Now his grin lit his face with a sunny halo.”

“My shoes made an odd, clacking sound on the cobblestones of the courtyard, no matter how quietly I placed my feet. It was like being followed by the audible manifestation of my own shadow.”

“I don’t believe she’ll be available for the rest of the day,” Gabriel said.“No? Is she in Velora, perhaps? I could go to the school and meet with her there.”“No, she’s not in Velora.”Raphael’s voice took on a note of concern. “Is she ill, then? I hope not. Is it a fever?”“No, not a fever—I mean, she’s not ill at all. She’s just unavailable.”“Raphael’s face took on a quizzical expression. “She has not been locked in her room, has she? Really, Gabriel—”

“He looked down at his empty glass. "One of the other ways in which I am different from my father," he said. "I am not interested in marrying where I do not love."I spoke in a jesting voice. "And of all the women in the eight provinces, you have not been able to find one you could love?"Now he looked at me again, and his face was completely serious. "That's the problem," he said. "There is one.”

“You're just afraid," I flung at him. "Of what would happen to you and your life at court if you were to carry Elisandra away. Of what your father would say. Of what Bryan would do to you."Now he, too, looked angry. "I am afraid of many things, but those are not the fears that keep me from action," he said.I turned my back on him. "Then I don't understand you," I said.I heard the door open. "No," he said, "and you never have.”

“Sweet Jovah singing, he had slept beside her all night, and kept her warm with his wings; and perhaps he did not hate her after all.”

“I realized a long time ago, with a certain amazement, that no mattter how important something is in your life, no matter how huge it is, how much space it takes up in your heart and in your thoughts, unless you mention it to other people, they have no idea it exists.”

“His brown eyes were set back in deep hollows, as though he looked out from a place of shadow on all the verities of the world.”

“She should leave you. Or you shouldn't leave her. I haven't worked it out yet. But you shouldn't be apart.”

“So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge.”

“I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness.”

“I wonder,” I said. “Perhaps you can meet with an accident on the road. Harwin and I can bring back the sad news that you died while we were traveling.” Gisele looked amused—and a little intrigued. “But wouldn’t you be expected to return with my corpse in tow?” “Not if you—fell off a cliff and drowned, and the water carried you away,” I said, improvising quickly. “Not if you were mauled by wolves andeaten .” “Oh, yes, do have me devoured by wild creatures.”

“She told me that Melisande had borne a daughter, and that one day . . . one day she would like for us to meet. And so when your father advertised the fact that he was looking for a husband for his daughter—” “Advertised,” she interrupted. “Oh, yes. Far and wide. Princess. Beautiful. Nubile. Available to big strong man, with even bigger sword.” Mickel thumped his chest. “I was intrigued. I was mortified. I thought I would save the daughter of my mother’s best friend from a fate worse than death.” “And if I had been a loud mouthed harridan with a taste for garlic and a fear of bathing?” “I would have been the Warlord everyone thinks I am, tossed her aside like a sack of potatoes in a white wedding dress, and asked for the hand of a peculiar redheaded woman I met on the road.” Sally smiled. “And if she said no?” “Well,” Mickel said, kissing her hand. “I may not be the Warlord of the Savage Belly Ache, but I am exceptionally brave. I would fight for her.”

“She smiled, if he could see that, and waited for him to ask the real question. But he was silent. He wanted her to volunteer the story, she realized, and she could just as easily choose to say nothing. But he deserved to know. They all deserved it, and Kirra already knew it, and Cammon may have guessed it, because Cammon could read souls, but Tayse was the only one she would tell.”

“Sometimes we become what we see. Sometimes we take what we see and make it the model for what we refuse to become.”

“And if I should leave you, for any reason," he added, tightening his grip as she struggled to free her hand, "I will return to you. That is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning and the thunderbolt falling tomorrow night. That is as sure as the god's existence. I will come back to you, or I will find you - over and over again, as often as we are parted, until the end of the world itself.”

“Love is like water from the ocean." Damiana said. "You cannot empty it dry. Take bucket after bucket of water out of the Cormeon Sea, and there is still more water left than you could ever use up. That's what love's like.”

“Yet the world is the same as it always was. It is merely that you see it with new eyes.”

“If love makes you sad, you acquire a little depth, a little compassion. If it makes you happy, you learn how to be joyous. Every relationship should color your soul to a certain degree, don't you think? Every friendship, every love affair - each one should build up the chambers of your heart the way a sea creature builds the chamber of his shell.”

“He leaned upon her as if there was no other support anywhere in the world, and she held him as if she would undertake no other task for all eternity.”

“I thought it would not hurt to remind you that love is a powerful force in this world, invisible though it seems.”

“I have changed for the last time--this is the man I will be till I die. And that man loves you.”

“He is so kind that he makes me search my soul to find new ways to be compassionate to others.”

“Everybody's afraid of love, because love is what hurts the most.”

“For the world slows and the stars falter, and all that remains is you...”

“That was so-Gryffin always has so much pain. That you can take it away like that - it's almost like magic."Chase shrugged in the dark. "Kindness is a form of magic," he said. "So everyone should be capable of at least a little. Good night. See you in the morning." And he nodded to me and strode off.Kindness is a form of magic.Then magic had sprinkled itself across me many times, when I had not noticed its fey sparkle. I had been used to thinking of my life as bleak and full of darkness, but for the first time it occurred to me how often a stranger had stepped forward to offer me comfort and assistance, no matter how briefly. Ian Shelby. Sarah Parmer. Aylre the Safe-Keeper. The man who had stopped Carlon from beating me in the streets. Chase Beerin. They had been kind to me; most had, in different ways, been kind to Gryffin as well. Looked at that way, my life was a weave of brightness laid over a trembling black, a scrap of midnight velvet spangled with many jewels.I had another thought as I stood there, trying desperately to understand a completely altered view of my existence. Someday I might be the one to offer kindness to someone else in grim and dire circumstances. Someday I might be the one with wealth or knowledge or strength or power that could be used to alleviate another person's distress. Such a thought had literally never crossed my mind before. More than once I had been saved. Someday I might save someone else in return.”

“And might I live long enough to see the world yet again as a place completely different, through eyes that see another truth not yet revealed?”

“She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon, or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year.He said in a voice that only she could hear: "I wish you were not my sister."She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire.”

“It is very easy to shun someone who is deliberately cruel, and everyone loathes a man who is brutal and vicious. Such people have a hard time winning followers. But an individual who is gracious, who is attractive, who smiles and flatters and praises - that is a person who can lead whole nations to disaster. Who would not want to follow such a man or woman? Everyone is drawn to beauty and wit.”

“...the townhouses looked bedraggled, unkempt, like an old homeless woman with an interesting history but a perilous future.”

“And you're not leaving," she said. "Promise me."It was as if she had asked him to promise to keep breathing, to notice sunshine, to permit the spinning of the earth. What choice did he have? Even if he left her, she would be camped in his heart, an insistent and willful presence. She would match her strides to his on any journey he ever took; she would lie beside him on any bed.Amalie, he said, "that's the easiest promise I've ever had to make.”

“Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there.”

“Do you love me?" he asked.I fell silent."For the rest of it is glitter and noise," he said. "At the heart of it all is love. You make that choice, and you go forward from there.”

“A truth comes out when it must;A dream comes true when it will.Though the world turn to ash and dustA secret’s a secret still.”

“We cannot go backward. We cannot erase time and events. But we can go forward, hand in hand, hope in our hearts and love lighting our way.”

“Manufactured--synthetic--even virtual, if that is what you turned out to be--I would love you.”

“Love is a popular romantic notion that leads to nothing but its own brand of misery.”

“A truth that no one knows is still the truth.”

“Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment.”

“I was Amazement--I was Desire--I was Ecstasy and Rapture and the slightest bit of Greed.”

“Yes, Jenna, I love you with all my heart. And with my atoms and molecules and electrons and whatever further breakdown you require. ”

“My love for you is elemental and immutable, and it will sustain me until I die.”

“I am who I am, born that way, and will die that way.”

“If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed.”

“If there is no god, what is left but science? What is left to endow us with any grace? You can tell me the chemical makeup of my skin and my brain, but how can you explain away my soul? And if there is no god to watch over me, chastise me, grieve for me, rejoice for me, make me fear, and make me wonder, what am I but a collection of metals and liquids with nothing to celebrate about my daily living?”

“Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.' 'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends.”