Quotes from Tamora Pierce

Things change," Daja said softly. "We change with them. We sail before the wind. We become adults. As adults, we keep our minds and our secrets hidden, and our wounds. It's safer.

Myles hugged her tightly, taking care not to bump her wounded arm. "You're a good lad, Alan of Trebond," he whispered. "You give an old man hope." "Nonsense," Alanna growled, pleased and embarrassed by the unexpected praise. "You aren't that old. And I'm not that good a lad.

The god touched me once, Beka. I'd soon not get his attention again.

Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public," Vedris always said. "They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies.

Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?" Alanna shook her head, smiling a little. In the three years she had been disguised as a boy, she had learned that boys know girls as little as girls know boys. It didn't make sense—people are people, after all, she thought—but that was how things were.

When I told you don't touch me to wake me, ever, because I've been in a war and I react violently, you respected me." For a plant person, Rosethorn could sound like iron when she made a point with someone stupid. "Evvy was in that same war. She fought as hard as any adult—harder, sometimes. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that she may suffer the same effects.

Think selfishly,' Daine said, trying to make these arrogant two-leggers see what she meant. 'You can't go on this way. Soon you will have no forests to get wood from or to hunt game in. You poison water you drink and bathe and fish in. Even if you keep the farms, they won't be enough to feed you if the rest of the valley's laid waste. You'll starve. Your people will starve- unless you buy from outside the valley, and that's fair expensive. You'll ruin Dunlath.

A knight must develop all his abilities, to the fullest.

They are sparkly," Nawat said. "The griffins shed them. I thought if I brought you a present that was made of discarded things, no one would punish you for having them.

We're men, and men aren't born to stand alone.

It isn't just children who need heros.

Being all of thirteen, of course you should be omniscient

Well, no, but everyone says they do." Someday I must read this scholar Everyone, she thought as she bit her tongue to keep from giving a rude answer. He seems to have written so much—all of it wrong.

It was like trying to balance on a pair of knife blades. Who had thought of this mad form of travel in the first place? And why had no one locked them up before they passed their dangerous ideas on to others?

It occurred to Keth for the first time that perhaps magic wasn't simply a matter of fires, lightning, and power in the air, if spoken words could also create such a transformation.

You come from a race that spends more time murdering your own kind than do all the immortals put together, yet you insist you are better than us.

Few people are wise enough to know they might not be ready for such a venture. Too many rush to wed, only to discover they know little about what they're getting into

He knows about things like betrayal, and being afraid, and the looks on people's faces when they know you did something they thought impossible

All things change," she told Alanna frankly. "It does not hurt men to know women have power, too.

It's a Stormwing, Ozorne said. I always wanted one.

You have a destiny. You aren't allowed to know it.

My wondrous book says you're a feline, and a carnivore, and a vertebrate, and a mammal. I wish them that wrote it could smell around here right now and maybe they wouldn't call you all those pretty names.

I know this will be hard, Arram. Do not be heroic. I have often done this on my own with Daleric's people. Sometimes I work here with two mastery students. I-- Two mastery students! Arram cried, as close to hysterics as he had ever been in his life. Then why not at least bring another instead of using only me? Ramasu raised his eyebrows until Arram caught his breath. Then he said, his voice kind and firm, Because I knew you would be enough.

Scrying the wind is very difficult, Tris," Niko said gently. "It's like scrying the future. You're assailed with thousands of images — fragments, really. It drives many who try it insane." "You learned to scry the future," Tris pointed out. "And a number of people have informed me they think I am mad," Niko replied, his voice very dry.