"For a moment, it was almost as if they were friends again."

"Not all people who inspire devotion are monsters."

"Your horse is named Small.Yes.Mine is named Big.-Fire and Brigan."

"Are you determined to leave me in this world to live without my heart?' Archer asked. 'Because that's what you very nearly did."

"Fire looked into his quiet eyes, touched his dear familiar face and considered the question."

"What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face."

"It was a hurting tune, resigned, 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 to say goodbye."

"How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill."

"Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely."

"He leaned heavily on the desk now, as if danger had strengthened him before and its lack now made him weak."

"Do you understand? I don't want you to do a thing if you don't understand it."

"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."

"They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed."

"Bitterblue had never seen a man naked, and she was curious. She decided the universe owed her a few minutes, just a few, to satisfy her curiosity. So she went to him and knelt, which shut him up."

"They sat on the outcropping of stone and at bread and fruit. Kasta watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, struck it in one place than another. It rose and fell again. It flowed, like water."Is this what the sea is like?" Kasta asked, and they both turned to her, surprised. "Does the sea move the way this grass moves?""It's like the sea, she said.Giddon's eyes on her were incredulous."What? Is it such a strange thing to say?"It's a strange thing for you to say. He shook his head. He gathered their bread and fruit, then rose. "The Lienid fighter is filling your mind with romantic notions."

"Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks and scream if I hear any strange noises."

"You won't even take your bow? Are you planning to throttle a moose with your bare hands, then?""I've a knife in my boot," she said, and then wondered, for a moment, if she could throttle a moose with her bare hands."

"Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's."

"Hidden yourself in a hole and dared to burden no one with your grievous friendship? I will have friends, Katsa. I will have a life, even though I carry this burden."

"This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing didn't, than not have it and wish you did."

"Things don't ever stay the same. Natural beginnings come to natural or unnatural ends."

"For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it will be insufferable crap, until the very last moment, when you figure out how to fix it and everything comes together."