“What is whiter than snow?' he said. 'The truth,' said Grania.'What is the best colour?' said Finn. 'The colour of childhood,' said she.'What is hotter than fire?' 'The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming in, and the house empty.''What has a taste more bitter than poison?' 'The reproach of an enemy.''What is best for a champion?' 'His doings to be high, and his pride to be low.''What is the best of jewels?' 'A knife.''What is sharper than a sword?' 'The wit of a woman between two men.''What is quicker than the wind?' said Finn then. 'A woman’s mind,' said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that.”

“And my desire,' he said, 'is a desire that is as long as a year; but it is love given to an echo, the spending of grief on a wave, a lonely fight with a shadow, that is what my love and my desire have been to me.”

“And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. 'It would be a great grief to us,' said Conn, 'to be brought away into a strange country.”

“And it seems to me that there is nothing more likely to cure a woman of lust than marriage. Now I understand what the saint meant when he said that it was better to marry than to burn. In my experience, if you marry, you certainly won't burn.”

“There's more to stories than it seems at first looking," she said. "Two sides to most stories. Folks better be thinking about that for once.”

“I hesitated. Karla once said that men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, she said, it's the other way around.”

“He lingered at the door, and said, 'The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, and the Scarecrow brains. Dorothy wants to go home. What do you want?'...She couldn't say forgiveness, not to Liir. She started to say 'a soldier,' to make fun of his mooning affections over the guys in uniform. But realizing even as she said it that he would be hurt, she caught herself halfway, and in the end what came out of her mouth surprised them both.She said, 'A soul-'He blinked at her.”