Quotes from Michelle Paver

For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs - which means that I get to make it up! But it's still got to be plausible.

Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been.

Fear is the loneliest feeling. You can be in a throng of people, but if you're afraid, you're on your own.

There's always a choice,' said Torak, and walked backward off the cliff.

Sometimes there's no warning. Nothing at all.

Vengeance burns,Torak." said Fin-Kedinn as the river bore him away. "It burns your heart. It makes the pain worse. Dont let that happen to you.

So I've got to find a mountiain that nobody's ever seen. And work out the answer to a riddle that nobody's ever solved. And kill a bear that nobody can fight." Renn sucked in her breath. "You've go to try."

Moving closer to the edge, I peered down. The water was glassy green, extraordinarily clear. I experienced the feeling I sometimes get when I'm on a bridge or a railway platform. Rationally, you know that you've no intention of stepping off the bridge or the platform - or this ice floe - but you're aware that you could, and that the only thing stopping you is your will.

Have you forgotten," she said in a furious whisper, "that he nearly killed us? That he threw my quiver in the stream, and threatened to snap my bow?" It was unclear which she considered worse: threatening them or her bow.

You cannot go and warn him," Saeunn said sternly. "It is too late. You would never find him." "I know," said Renn without turning her head. To herself she added, But I've still got to try.

Toark woke with a jolt from a sleep he'd never meant to have.

DEATH freezes everything. Whatever you did or didn't do, whatever you said or left unsaid: none of that is ever going to change. You have no more chances to say sorry or make things right. No more chances for anything except regret.

Men like that — when they know they won't be found out — they will do anything.

Three weeks after New Year, she lost her faith. It happened quite suddenly. She simply woke up and it was gone. As she lay in bed it occurred to her that between religion and superstition there was no difference, since both were based on unreason. To kill a man to redeem the sins of others was as irrational as tapping a hole in one's eggshell to stop a witch using it as a boat.

If you're warm enough when you set out, you're wearing too many clothes.

This was the wrong way because - because it wasn't the right way.

A man crawls into a tomb to die. A boy crawls in to live. You think that's chance?

Choas errupted amoung the watchers. They didn't think it was over at all. "He cheated! He used fire!" "No, he won fairly enough!"

The reeds stood tall and dead: I had the oddest feeling they wanted me gone. The light was failing. I caught a swampy smell of decay. Behind me something rustled and I saw the reeds part for some unseen creature. I thought: No wonder Maud's mad. All her life in a place like this?

And yet I think I now understand the impulse which drives men to shoot bears. It isn't for the pelt or the meat or the sport - or not only those things. I think they need to do it. They need to kill that great Arctic totem to give them some sense of control over the wilderness - even if that is only an illusion.

Run, Torak! The bear...is...possessed...

Fear of the dark. Until I came here, I thought that was for children; that you grew out of it. But it never really goes away. It's always there underneath. The oldest fear of all.

What kind of idiot bird sings in the middle of the night?... I wish it'd shut up and let me sleep! - Pirra

Wolf hated the female tailless. He'd hated her from the first moment he'd smelt her, as she pointed the long claw that flies at his pack brother. What a thing to do! As if Tall Tail-less was some kind of prey!...Didn't she know that he was the lead wolf? She was so sharp and disrespectful when she yipped at him in tail-less talk. Why didn't Tall Tail-less just snarl and chase her away?