Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?

Love as thou wilt

All knowledge is worth having.

All paths are present, always... and we can but choose among them.

Yes my lord, but questions are dangerous, for they have answers

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.

Those that yield are not always weak

It is my observations, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others

This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.

It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.

For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always. These events, so distant in legend, play a part in shaping the very events we witness about us, each and every day.

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.

Battle for the sake of honor may be a fine thing for bards to sing of, but it is no way to preserve one's homeland

It is a dangerous thing to bring a dream to life....I have watched my deepest, dearest hopes take shape, and I am not entirely sure I like the shape they have taken.

People believe what they are told.

It's the same questions we ask of our existence, and the answer is always the same. The mystery lies not in the question nor the answer, but in the asking and answering themselves, over and over again, and the end is engendered in the beginning.

We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart

The harp sounds at each passing breeze, but that does not mean the tune is masterfully played.

And for a price, I will pretend absolutely nothing.

I had begun to think my ripening body would wither untasted on the vine.

Truly, it is in loss that we learn a thing's true value.

A small kindness, a confluence of compassion, had saved his life. Was that strength, or a weakness?

We might embody those qualities we desire to possess by embracing them, over and over, until the line between seeming and being is no more.

One must gauge one's trust carefully.

Sidonie, I know you don't remember it, but you once promised to trust me beyond all reason. And I swear to you that all that I am, all that I possess, including this gem-stone, is yours. I need you. I can't do this alone. Forget your memories. Look into your heart. And if you can find somewhere there, some lingering spark of trust that owes naught to reason, I beg you to speak the word written here.

Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking ears will not hear

Well, I was living it, but a shared dream half-lived is a hollow thing

Jehanne said that it would always be like this. That I would always be young and beautiful in her memory, and she in mine. That I would never grow resentful, never be tempted to betray her. That she would never grow restless and fickle, and see to replace me. So you see, not exactly the sentiments of a great and terrible love affair.

There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.

There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong in comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.

There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire

I wondered if, by the time we'd been together as long as Phèdre and Joscelin, I'd be able to predict her reactions. I wasn't sure I would.I wasn't sure I wanted to, either.

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade

I lie awake in my bed, clinging to the brightness I have known, fighting back the tide of darkness, the memories of blood and branding and horror, and the legacy of cruelty that runs in my own veins, shaping my own secret vow and wielding it like a brand against the darkness, whispering it to myself, over and over. I will try to be good.

I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.

...not stories, but histories. For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always.

Spontaneity is the province of youth

Stand at the crossroads if you will, but if you'll not choose, I'll move on without you

I wish sometimes that the gods would either choose better, or make their wishes clearer

Soon never comes soon enough to a young child.

It's funny how despair can soon become an old companion

I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand.

Stupid to speak of blame when the wills of the immortals are involved.

If you thought better of me, you would not be so surprised

There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.

It is not everyday that one learns an entire militia has sworn unbeknownest to obey you

It is a scholar's weakness, to run narrow and deep.

Like a falling star, he descended on the Tarbh Cró, a Cassiline berserker, his sword biting and slashing like a silver snake.

After you, it's all cheap tequila.

I can see patterns in events, and behaviors; in mathematics, I follow slower

That which yields is not always weak.

To recongnize that the treachery of one member of a house does not taint all born within it