"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."

"How unjust then to meet that person you love, and be kept away from them only because ones bed is made of hay , and the other, feathers."

"You're the queen, and it's the queen's house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he's highly unlikely ever to be queen."

"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."

"There isn't a simple person anywhere in this world."

"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."

"Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?"

"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."

"Gratitude takes less energy than anger."

"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."

"She had thought she'd already reached her capacity for pain and had no room inside her for more. 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 upwards, and, just when you'd 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 other people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her."

"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?"

"She didn't know what would happen because of this. But she knew that today, she would hurt no one. She threw back her blankets and though only of today."

"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.’"

"I meditate, and when I do, Prince Harry appears in my subconscious and meditates with me. It's a little strange but I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Sometimes he's not the only one; the other day it was me, Prince Harry, the Dalai Lama, Mr. Rogers, Coco the gorilla, and George Clooney. We were all floating above the earth looking down at the continents as they passed. George Clooney suggested I visit Providence, Rhode Island. The Dalai Lama sighed deeply and said he'd like to visit Tibet.Poor Dalai Lama."

"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."

"Some of the smartest men have a hard time comprehending the obvious."

"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."

"A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug."

"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 would thump them both, and she would apologize to neither."