Quotes from Nicola Griffith

People could not be made to change. It had taken her a long time to learn that. People had to want to change themselves.

Artos is afraid of you, and I begin to understand why.

The king and Osric had vanished, gone ahead around the curve, and Hild walked alone-they all walked alone-along the inwardly spiralling path painted with tales, the characters from songs she had heard in hall all her life, songs of music and magic, of heroes and beginnings.

The king would never let Hild go, not now. Not until she was dead or of no more use.

I told her of your knife fight, and your purchase, and she told me, gravely, to tell you to have a care with the girl. She said wealh and Anglisc do not walk the same path or dream the same dreams. And she should know.

Hild liked listening to her mother planning to build, rather than destroy or take. It felt as comforting as a larder full of food with only a month til spring. It made her feel safe, that their web, their weft and warp, was wide and strong.

She should have expected her mother to know she knew.

She turned her head slightly, to examine me out of each eye, as though each saw a different world but only one could be trusted.

She could speak if she chose, but she was not ready to choose because she did not understand.

Human cultures kept the oddest gestures.

Hild wasn't listening. He wondered what paths she walked in her head.

Long after the sound faded, she sensed the air humming as the gong quivered on its ropes.

Mead was the key to good fellowship. A better gift, sometimes, than gold.

How long had it been since the child laughed and played with others her age?

Osric doesn't understand his dangr, though the danger is nigh. But a word in the right ear, a careful word, would break that egg but it hatches." "I don't-" "It will hatch soon.

They were afraid of the child. Fursey didn't know whether to pity her or be glad for her. Fear could always be used.

In the wild waste, a girl, growing.

They sat opposite each other, like enemies at truce.

I didn't know what to make of this fey mood. He was the one who was supposed to make conversations easier.

Brown eyes met brown but Aoife's were cold, igneous, compressed by years of hard living.

She heard the world humming deep in its throat, and when it rang with its soft pulse, she leaned forward to strike the gong.

They are malicious, gods, these Tuath, to make such things to fight over.

There was something about alliances she could not quite see, but the more she thought about it the less clear it became, so she set it aside for later.

Showing off her best points was a habit that saved her life more than once.