Quotes from Sharon Shinn

I have changed for the last time--this is the man I will be till I die. And that man loves you.

Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.' 'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends.

We cannot go backward. We cannot erase time and events. But we can go forward, hand in hand, hope in our hearts and love lighting our way.

If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed.

Manufactured--synthetic--even virtual, if that is what you turned out to be--I would love you.

It is very easy to shun someone who is deliberately cruel, and everyone loathes a man who is brutal and vicious. Such people have a hard time winning followers. But an individual who is gracious, who is attractive, who smiles and flatters and praises - that is a person who can lead whole nations to disaster. Who would not want to follow such a man or woman? Everyone is drawn to beauty and wit.

Would you not marry even for love?" "Love does not seem to bring anyone much happiness as far as I have observed. So I think the lesson learned is never to love." "The lesson is to love wisely," he replied.

You're just afraid," I flung at him. "Of what would happen to you and your life at court if you were to carry Elisandra away. Of what your father would say. Of what Bryan would do to you." Now he, too, looked angry. "I am afraid of many things, but those are not the fears that keep me from action," he said. I turned my back on him. "Then I don't understand you," I said. I heard the door open. "No," he said, "and you never have.

The promises of the future cannot undo the harm of the past.

How did they find out?" Donnal inquired. "Did you set them on fire?" "You know, it's so rare that I actually do that, and yet that's always the first question anyone asks me." -Senneth

I have changed for the last time--this is the man I will be till I die. And that man loves you.

Love is like water from the ocean." Damiana said. "You cannot empty it dry. Take bucket after bucket of water out of the Cormeon Sea, and there is still more water left than you could ever use up. That's what love's like.

I thought it would not hurt to remind you that love is a powerful force in this world, invisible though it seems.

No such thing as too tall," she said. She had automatically reached for a brush and now she began uncoiling the tangles of my hair. "It's good for a woman to be able to look into a man's eyes. Then she's not afraid to tell him what she thinks.

You can hardly walk up to complete strangers and say, "Good for you! You've risked banishment and brutality and ostracism just to be together, and I applaud your choice! You're in the vanguard of social change, and even though it's hard on you, the generations that come after you will have an easier time of it because you were brave enough to fall in love." So instead I told them I liked their baby. It means the same thing, but it's more socially acceptable.

There is nothing but heartache for a coru woman and a hunti man," she said, deliberately contrary. "He cannot control her and she cannot change him." "He never fails her and she always moves him," Darien corrected. "She can trust his strength, and he can be lifted by her joy.

And might I live long enough to see the world yet again as a place completely different, through eyes that see another truth not yet revealed?

She smiled, if he could see that, and waited for him to ask the real question. But he was silent. He wanted her to volunteer the story, she realized, and she could just as easily choose to say nothing. But he deserved to know. They all deserved it, and Kirra already knew it, and Cammon may have guessed it, because Cammon could read souls, but Tayse was the only one she would tell.

My shoes made an odd, clacking sound on the cobblestones of the courtyard, no matter how quietly I placed my feet. It was like being followed by the audible manifestation of my own shadow.

Sweet Jovah singing, he had slept beside her all night, and kept her warm with his wings; and perhaps he did not hate her after all.

She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon, or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year. He said in a voice that only she could hear: "I wish you were not my sister." She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire.

You seem sad, Coriel." I nodded. "The world makes me sad these days. Things I would not have noticed a year ago seem dreadful to me now. Is that a function of growing older? And will everything seem more dreadful every year, from now until I die?

I had been right the first time. His sonorous voice echoed through a hollow place of sorrow, catching its reverberations from those ragged walls. His gaiety masked a deep well of loneliness; he was a bright outward shape wrapped around shadows.

You must invest out of passion ! You must invest out of desire ! The same way you invent. The same way you fall in love! If you are too careful, you end up with something timid and unimportant. Something you don't mind losing. And when was that ever something you wanted to fight for?