Quotes from Sharon Shinn

the townhouses looked bedraggled, unkempt, like an old homeless woman with an interesting history but a perilous future.

You do not decide first if you want to live in a village or a court. You decide if that is the man you want to live with, and then you say yes or no.

Perhaps I will someday. When there is nothing left in my own world that pleases me.' 'Then you will never visit, for you are a girl who will always find pleasure in something.

Elisandra's lips moved in a silent prayer of gratitude. Color actually washed across her face. That was bad; that was actually terrible; but there had been a hero, nonetheless, some mercy shown, and that made the story more bearable.

People always say they're willing to die for the ones they love, as if nothing else they could do would be so hard. But it is harder to keep living for someone else, doing everything in your power to keep that person safe and breathing.

Not a realistic wish, as anyone could have told him — but I would not be the one to say so. Why limit your dreams, after all? Why not hope for the grandest and the best?

Perhaps I did nothing to ease their lives at that point except exist and remind them that I loved them. Perhaps that's all anyone can do at such a time.

He is to be the king, after all. He should learn to guard his emotions a little more closely.' 'Like you, I suppose,' I said in a huff. 'You're never edgy or out of sorts.' He grinned lazily. 'I am, all of the time. There is much about the way the world is ordered that does not please me at all. But I think it foolish to vent my displeasure on every poor soul who happens to cross my path.

Father carefully built the piles of kindling and put the bigger logs on top, then started the fire with a coal brought from the kitchen. So small, at first — a flicker, a tendril of yellow, a fugitive lick of untamed gold — and then a fire, and then a blaze, and then, as more logs were added, a true inferno.

But don't you want that?" [Corene] asked, and even she could hear the wistfulness in her voice. "Love? Someone who waits for you at the door, someone whose day isn't complete unless she sees your face? Someone who will love you even when you're angry, even when you're ugly, even when you don't love yourself? Doesn't everybody want that?

He turned toward the door, but lingered on the threshold, seeming to want to say more. 'You should not let just anyone kiss your hand, you know,' he said, the mock seriousness still in his voice. 'Greta will tell you that. And definitely no kissing anywhere off the dance floor—in the gardens, for instance, or in empty hallways when no one else is near.' I believe she's covered that in one of her lectures,' I said demurely.

She was a child of fire, after all: wayward and unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. She could wreak havoc or she could beat back the darkness; it was all in how she chose to employ her intelligence, her skill. She might allow herself to be controlled, but only when it suited her own ends. She must never forget that she had the power to forge her own destiny. (pg. 280)

I have never been interested in taking students. They waste one's time and interrupt one's schedule.

Oh, I think so. Why do we love anybody, after all? Because they have some connection to us. Because they are a part of us. Because their shapes and faces are familiar, and we are not happy if those shapes and faces are missing from our lives.

Mally likes to have boundaries. She likes to know that making a choice means she has to give up something else. She likes to think that actions have consequences. It makes her feel like the world makes sense.

Because I was raised to believe that every man has a responsibility, and the strongest man has the heaviest responsibilities...

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. It frightened me to see this so clearly, as if I suddenly found I was waltzing with a ghost through the multicolored fantasy of a dream. All my love rushed back for him, complicated and partisan.

Is love the ultimate illusion? Or is it what it seems to be -- the greatest transformation of all? (Glyrenden)

You must welcome bounty whenever it comes, hunti man. It is often inconvenient. But if you insist on accepting it only when it suits your schedule, you will find yourself very poor.

Thank you, no," Zoe said, speaking with an effort. "If I have something to occupy my hands, perhaps my heart won't hurt quite so much.

I think my sacrifice was a counterweight in the great balance of justice. Because I was willing to give so much, Seka was willing to give so much. My actions in some sense inspired hers, even though neither of us knew what the other was planning. She probably slipped from camp with Mally in her arms the minute I swallowed the fatal dose. The universe loves such symmetry.

It is always good to know who you are, what matters to you, and what you are capable of.

Well, that's the lesson, I suppose," Zoe said. "We can never predict who will love us or where we'll feel love in return.

Every political party needs the righteous anger of the loyal opposition to keep it honest