Quotes from Lisa Tawn Bergren

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision that something is more important than fear.

Sometimes the heart tells us to venture where the mind fears to tread.

I nodded, pretending to be a hundred times more courageous than I felt. But that was the thing about courage. Sometimes you had to fake it to feel it.

Fantasizing about an Italian hottie was far better than my normal dreams.

Lia aimed, shifted and waited, watching one man peek out time and time again. She let her arrow fly anticipating his next peek at us and it pierced his eye. "Okay that's just going to make 'em mad " I said. "Three hundred and ninety-two " she said to Luca tossing her braid over her shoulder and taking aim again. "Saints in heaven " he said to me rolling his eyes "how much deeper in love can I yet fall?

I finally meet a guy who's interesting and who seems to have a half-interest in me and it is TOTALLY the wrong time and place.

Don't you agree? Swordplay is a dance of sorts, an understanding of the logical, most sophisticated next step. Except that in a fight, one must take the unexpected step. In dance it is all about taking the right, expected step.

I am here for a reason. This is no haphazard mistake. What good can I do with what I have?

Okay, try this on for size, Tall, Dark and Handsome. I won't be born for almost seven hundred hundred years. How's that strike you?

They shall never believe that a young lord of Siena would march directly into their camp. And if they do? He gave me another small smile. Then my beloved lady shall have to come and rescue me. Us, Luca corrected him, slurring his words now. Have to rescue us. He adjusted Luca across his shoulders. Stay with me, Luca, he said sternly. Can't get much closer m'lord, Luca mumbled.

He hesitated, as if wrestling with the desire to cross the space between us and kiss me until I admitted I was just a tiny bit in love with him too. But he didn't. He didn't.

How good it felt, to do some good, here and there. Perhaps this was what it meant to be an adult. To grab the opportunity at hand, make the most of the day, regardless of what it looked like.

We all have freedom of choice. Over and over again, minute by minute. How will you live your life? For yourself Or for others? For something good? For love? Love.

Together, come what may.

If you both care for each other more than you care for yourself, your marriage will endure all.

If he lived in my time, Marcello would've been in the running for Sexiest Man Alive in People. Rich, powerful, and hotter than wasabi, he was a force. (Kindle Locations 766-767).

Don't rehearse your problems, Dad always said. Meaning, we were only supposed to go through our problems when they were actually upon us.

My kingdom for a flush toilet.

I think the truth to living fully is to appreciate what we have, day by day, regardless of what we know might come our way.

I read once that courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision that something is more important than that fear.

His eyes opened, and he stared at me. The morning light was streaming through the window,and my hair rolled in waves over either shoulder. "God has smiled upon me. I have the most beautiful wife in all the land.

Lia let out a low growl and moved her arrow to the base of his fat throat. What do you think, Gabi? Would you like to see these nuptials through? Not this day, I said How about on the morrow? Marcello asked, smiling and lifting my hand to his lips. If I am your groom? Hold that eHarmony thought, Lia whispered in English. We gotta get out of here.

Prayer is prayer, regardless of where you are.

And sometimes, God asks us to wrestle with the unfamiliar until it becomes our new familiar. Until we can breathe freely in that new place.