Quotes from Mercedes Lackey

Knowledge will always be the best weapon against tyrants.

One girl made flatbread, another cleaned and sliced greens, cucumbers and mushrooms, and a third made dressing of olive oil, vinegars and herbs. So while they waited they had greens and mushrooms tossed in the dressing with crumbled goat cheese on top to eat on the folded-up flatbread. There was more flatbread to sop up the juices of the stewed rabbit and vegetables, and the dragons appeared, as they were finishing the meal, with yet more flatbread and honey.

Suck on that, doubters.

My father had been from Glasgow; my mother, from Los Angeles. They had both enjoyed the quip that the difference between an American and a European was that to an American, a hundred years was a long time, and to a European, a hundred miles is a big journey.

I am a woman pretending to be a man, pretending to be this ship's first officer, pretending to be a pirate, pretending to be innocent of murder … I begin to lose track of all the roles I am playing.

I just want them to discover something they can do that makes them contented and feeling as if they are doing something worth doing.

She'd have laughed at the expression on his face, if she hadn't known that would make him turn against her. What a joke! To think that she, a skeptic above all else, had raised up a pious little Satanist! Could Satanists be pious?

He had to admit that he did. And he had to admit that the idea of making life fair had a kind of thrill to it. Even if all he did was share a piece of bread . . . But

Life isn't fair' is nothing but an excuse people make to justify bad things they do. But why shouldn't life be fair? What's keeping it from being fair? Those same cruel, mean, and evil people.

Inexperience can be overcome, ignorance be enlightened, but prejudice will destroy you.

vampires don't snore.

I understand that you think your child isn't old enough to know his own mind, but I promise you, he is. He may well be wrong, but he does know his own mind, and he's got a perfect right to think that way. And you need to stop letting him prove he's smarter than you are by rising to the bait he throws out to make you angry!

But a Herald has to have your trust right away, don't you see? If you come to trust the person more than the office, the way you do with your priest, there would be trouble for every new Herald in a Sector." The boy looked thoughtful at this. "So you move all the time, to make sure it's the job that stays important, not the person doing it. I bet if you stayed in one place too long, you'd get too bound up with the people to judge right, too.

There is no shame in loving. (...) This I think I have learned: where there is love, the form does not matter, and the gods are pleased. This I have observed: what occurs in nature, comes by the hand of nature, and if the gods did not approve, it would not be there. I give you these things as food for your heart and mind.

You are not the only female hire-swords I have dealt with," he replied. "Many of my trade allies have them as personal retainers. It has often seemed to me that many of those I met have had to be twice as skilled as their male counterparts to receive half the credit.

a very complicated board game that used miniatures, stacks of books, and strange dice

I, ah … I suppose it's for the best. That you … aren't a boy, I mean. There was another, longer awkward pause. I … I'm glad you aren't a boy. Despite the danger, the horror, the utterly terrible ridiculousness of the situation, Clarice felt like laughing. Thank you, she said gravely. I'm glad I'm not a boy, too.

Teach what you know, regardless of when you have learned it—teach what you learned yesterday sagely, as if you have known it all your life, and teach what you have known for decades with enthusiasm, as if you learned it only yesterday.

Command is more than issuing orders, it is knowing what those orders might mean to the lives of your men and knowing that you and you alone are the one responsible for the outcome.

You have several significant flaws, including that once you are convinced you are capable of one thing of a certain scale, you are equally convinced you can handle more. You do not allow for their cumulative effects upon you. You are doing what you can.

To get back to the original subject, most dragons prefer to be friends at a distance. Occasionally meet where the edges of our territories join—that sort of thing. Chat, exchange news, perhaps play a round of the riddle game, then go our separate ways.

There are more than enough people in this world who only want cheaper goods, and don't care how they're made, or what the hidden costs are.

If you don't look after your fellow man, if you think that what you want is always more important than what anyone else wants or needs, you're not human, and that's that. There is no virtue in selfishness, not one bit.

Tradition spoke of an elegant half-arch being only a fallen pile of stones without its counterpart to make it whole.