"Part of avoiding thoughts about something was not encouraging opportunities for that something to makes itself felt."

"Brigan, could you attempt, at least, to make yourself presentable? I know this is a war, but the rest of us are trying to pretend it's a party."

"I've always been led to believe that the ultimate goal for an author is the movie deal. Now I understand that the movie deal is merely a MEANS TO A MUCH HIGHER END: NAIL POLISH."

"Something caught in her throat at this second thanks, when she'd threatened him so brutally. When you're a monster, she thought, you are thanked and praised for not behaving like a monster. She would like to restrain from cruelty and receive no admiration for it."

"I wouldn't marry Giddon to save my life," Katsa said. "Not even to save yours.""Well." Raffin's eyes were full of laughter. "I'd leave that part out."

"Not all sons were like their fathers. A son chose the man he would be.Not all daughters were like their fathers. A daughter monster chose the monster she would be."

"But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped."

"Your brothers are the foolish ones for not seeing the strength in beautiful things."

"Now that we know about his indigestion, we can torture him with cake."

"You're afraid of your own anger."

"It's as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus."

"But everyone has some kind of power to hurt people."

"He thinks we're made of money."

"I don't know how it'll be between us Thiel. I don't know how we'll learn to trust each other again, and I know you're not well enough to help me with every matter I face. But I miss you and I'd like to try again."

"He held up a finger and went to the hallway, where he tripped over Blotchy, and then over the two monster cats madly pursuing Blotchy. Swearing, he leaned over the landing and called to the guard that unless the kingdom fell to war or his daughter was dying, he better not be interrupted until further notice."

"Love doesn't measure that way... you may blame me for your feelings, but it isn't fair to blame me for how you've chosen to behave."

"To Garan's credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. "Best dungeons I ever been in," he said, chewing on a toothpick."Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he had gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers."

"If her enemies were Brigan's friends and her friends were Brigan's enemies, then the two of them could walk through the world arm in arm and never be hit by arrows again."

"While I was looking the other way your fire went outLeft me with cinders to kick into dustWhat a waste of the wonder you wereIn my living fire I will keep your scorn and mineIn my living fire I will keep your heartache and mineAt the disgrace of a waste of a life."

"A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?"

"If she was suggesting she was too wise with the weight of her experience to fall prey to infatuation - well, the disproof was sitting before her in the form of a gray-eyed prince with a thoughtful set to his mouth that she found quite distracting.Fire, Kristin Cashore"If she was suggesting she was too wise with the weight of her experience to fall prey to infatuation - well, the disproof was sitting before her in the form of a gray-eyed prince with a thoughtful set to his mouth that she found quite distracting."

"Men are daft around women, incautious and boastful."

"I'm not going to wear a red dress," she said."It would look stunning, My Lady," she called.She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. "If there's anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I'll hit him in the face."

"Well then," Roen said briskly, "are you sleeping?""Yes.""Come now. A mother can tell when her son lies. Are you eating?""No," Brigan said gravely. "I've not eaten in two months. It's a hunger strike to protest the spring flooding in the south.""Gracious," Roen said, reaching for the fruit bowl. "Have an apple, dear."

"I don't understand your book. Isn't every book a book of words?"

"In the end, Leck should have stuck to his lies. For it was the truth he almost told that killed him."

"It was a haunting tune, unresigned, a cry of heartache for all in the world that fell apart. As ash rose black against the brilliant sky, Fire's fiddle cried out for the dead, and for the living who stay behind and say goodbye."

"Kasta looked from one of them to the other, the two of them shaking hands, understanding each other's concern. She didn't see where Giddon came off feeling insulted. She didn't see how Giddon had any place in it at all. Who were they, to take her fight away from her and turn it into some sort of understanding between themselves? She would knock his nose from his face. She would thump them both, and she would apologise to neither."

"There was no helping her tears. For they would leave Po behind— She cried into his shoulder like a child. Ashamed of herself, for it was only a parting, and Bitterblue had not wept like this even over a death. ‘Don’t be ashamed,’ Po whispered. ‘Your sadness is dear to me. Don’t be frightened. I won’t die, Katsa. I won’t die, and we’ll meet again.’"

"But she remembered having told Archer once that you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many people were trapped in that place with her."

"It was a strange monster, for beneath its exterior it was frightened and sickened by its own violence. It chastised itself for its savagery. And sometimes it had no heart for violence and rebelled against it utterly."

"The fact that at the moment the distinction is being made, a young adult, as opposed to an adult, is the one reading it. In other words, I don't entirely believe in the distinction. A great book is a great book, and it's impossible to say what part of a person is going to connect to it."

"What was the purpose of a woman monster?It came out in a whisper. 'What am I for?"

"Brigan was saying her name, and he was sending her a feeling. It was courage and strength, and something else too, as if he were standing with her, as if he'd taken her within himself, letting her rest her entire body for a moment on his backbone, her mind in his mind, her heart in the fire of his.The fire of Brigan's heart was astounding. Fire understood, and almost could not believe, that the feeling he was sending her was love."

"Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and then rescue him."

"What are you grinning at?" Katsa demanded for the third or fourth time. "Is the ceiling about to cave in on my head or something? You look like we're both on the verge of an enormous joke.""Katsa, only you would consider the collapse of the ceiling a good joke."

"I know you don't want this, Katsa. But I can't help myself. The moment you came barreling into my life I was lost. I'm afraid to tell you what I wish for, for fear you'll... oh, I don't know, throw me into the fire. Or more likely, refuse me. Or worst of all, despise me," he said, his voice breaking and his eyes dropping from her face. His face dropping into his hands. "I love you," he said. "You're more dear to my heart than I ever knew anyone could be. And I've made you cry; and there I'll stop."

"She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth."

"I have no doubt that you are more than capable of bringing the Monsean queen and my son and the rest of my sons and a hundred Nanderan kittens through an onslaught of howling raiders if you chose to."

"She understood now that while it had been wrong to kill Cansrel, it had also been right. The boy with the strange eyes had helped her to see the rightness of it. The boy who'd killed Archer. Some people had too much power and too much cruelty to live. Some people were too terrible, no matter if you loved them; no matter that you had to make yourself terrible too, in order to stop them. Some things just had to be done.I forgive myself, though Fire. Today, I forgive myself."

"Please, Katsa," he finally said. "At least talk to me".She swung around to face him. "What it there to talk about? You know how I feel, and what I think about it.""And what I feel? Doesn't it matter?"

"Circumstances don't always align themselves with human intention."

"And of course she understood now why her body wanted to run whenever he appeared. It was a correct instinct, for there was nothing to be got from this but sadness."

"She didn't want to go far, just out of the trees so she could see the stars. They always eased her loneliness. She thought of them as beautiful creatures, burning and cold; each solitary, and bleak, and silent like her."

"I want to have the heart and mind of a queen, she whispered. "I want it more than anything. But I'm only pretending. I can't find the feeling of it inside."

"When Brocker arrived he took her hands and held them to his face and cried into them."

"The only way for you to keep your mind straight is to run from those who would confuse you."

"What man can hate or love well when he is drugged?"

"It seemed to Fire it was rarely enough one knew a person one wished to marry. How unjust then to meet that person, and be kept from it because one's bed was made of hay and not feathers."

"Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself."