“Do you understand? I don't want you to do a thing if you don't understand it.”

“Your sadness is one of the things that makes you beautiful to me. Don't you see that? I understand it. It makes my own sadness less frightening." (Brigan)”

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

“I don't want to love you if you're only going to die.”

“He said, ‘The moment I began to love you was the moment when you saw your fiddle smashed on the ground, and you turned away from me and cried against your horse. Your sadness is one of the things that makes you beautiful to me. Don’t you see that? I understand it. It makes my own sadness less frightening.”

“Great seas," he said."What do you want?"He held the candle up to her face."Po, what do you want?""She did a far better job than I would've done.”

“Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?”