"It's harder to heal than it is to kill."

"Scummer, pox and wound rot!" roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. "Gods cursed the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! May every flea, leech and hookworm in all creation find and feast upon them!"

"You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him.""So? He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep."

"Alanna: All I know is that I'm to jump when I'm told and I have no free time."

"Face it," Gary told her kindly. "You'll never catch up. You just do as much as you can and take the punishments without saying anything. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't what they're really trying to teach us--to take plenty and keep our mouths shut."

"Sadly for my wedding plans, I learned that Nestor is a bardash. I envy the men who enjoy his favors. He has always treated me with friendship which I now value more than my old romantic feelings."

"The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson."

"This may be my only chance to see humans before these two are made into fertilizer for Moonwind's rosebushes."

"I come from a dysfunctional family, so my views of parents and parenting used to be highly mixed."

"Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you--and you won't let them do anything for fear you'll be hurt. That's selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?"

"It isn't just children who need heros."

"If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us that you wish."

"All these nice clothes, all these jokes and drinks and food, what good does it do? Tomorrow, folk will be poor and starving and dying with a solder's pike in them, and these people will have another celebration, more nice clothes, more jokes, more gems. The suffering is forgotten or ignored - why sorrow? The war victims aren't our people. And then the wheel turns and suddenly they are our people."

"Tris: "I was reading." Sandry: "You're always reading. The only way people can ever talk to you is to interrupt." Tris: "Then maybe they shouldn't talk to me."

"We build up pretty pictures of men, when we want to be in love. We hate to have them ruined."

"The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends."

"Don't call me 'gentleman'. I work for a livin'."

"It occurred to Keth for the first time that perhaps magic wasn't simply a matter of fires, lightning, and power in the air, if spoken words could also create such a transformation."

"Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, "Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That's not woman's work.""It's needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself.""I never!" gasped Sarra, indignant."You taught me when you were murdered in your own house," Daine said quietly."

"What people tell me they take away from my books is that they can shape their lives, they can achieve their own dreams. And certainly that's what I want them to take away."

"George looked at her for a long moment. Finally he replied, "And why do you find it so hard to think someone might like you and want to do things for you?"

"Didn't they realize that the only way to change things was to act?"

"What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people?"

"I'm sorry," she said humbly. "I haven't wanted to lie to you.""I should hope so. You're the worst liar I've ever met." He thought about it for a moment, then added, "--or the best. Now I'm all confused."

"Don't die on me," she whispered when the clock struck midnight and he still had not moved. "It's only a little shoulder wound. Goddess, George-don't die on me."His eyes flickered open and he smiled. "I didn't know you cared," he whispered. "And why insult me? I won't die for a wee nick like this; I've had worse in my day."Alanna wiped her wet cheeks. "Of course I care, you unprincipled pickpocket!" she whispered. "Of course I care."

"Thus went my first Court Day.I think I'm going to puke."

"We're men, and men aren't born to stand alone."

"Why does this mean so much to you, Jon?"The Prince turned. "Because he's my friend. Because I always know where he stands, and where I stand with him. Because I think he'd die for me and--and I think I'd die for him. Is that enough?"

"If I have to 'catch' a man to get a husband, I don't want one."

"We're on a hunt, Cooper. When you're on a hunt, you do whatever it takes."

"Cats aren't special advisers. They advise us all the time, whether we want them to or no."

"You must tell Lady Alanna that sometime. I'd do it from a distance."

"I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy."

"I would apologize for my rudeness, if I had any manners. Happily, I don't."

"I well knew the rules to follow with our training Dogs: Speak when you're spoken to. Keep out of the way. Obey all orders. Get killed on your own time."

"You know something? There are sandstorms that strip man and horse and bury them - I've seen them. I saw bones piled higher than my head for the folly of a bad king and those who wanted his throne. I lived through a blizzard that froze every other living creature solid. Against those things, you're only a man. I can deal with you."

"If you have to hit--hit low."

"Do you know, sire, I think that if we live to tell our grandchildren about this war, they will accuse us of making it up.' -Marielle."

"Turnstall's view of what men could and couldn't do was sometimes odd. Our old parter Goodwin and I agreed that there was no manly or unwomanly, only what you chose to do."

"My husband and I click wedding rings sometimes and say, 'By the power of the Castle of Greyskull!'"

"Frostpine made a face. Lifting the cup, he dumped its contents down his throat. "Auugghh! he yelled, his voice stronger than it had been since his return from the harbor. "Are you trying to kill me, woman?""If I mean to kill someone, I do it," Rosethorn told him. "I don't try."

"Briar: "They never tell you some things. They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don't ever want to learn." Rosethorn: "All you can do is learn good to balance the bad. Learn and do all the good within your reach. Then, if you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream."

"You look as scary as a buttered muffin."

"Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom."Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended."

"And she told you something about yourself you really ought to know: that you're beautiful, and worth loving."

"It's always better to attack than to defend," Coram had told her when they talked about fencing late at night. "Always. Ye don't win with defense--ye only hold the other feller off, or wear him down. Attack and have done with it!"

"Without patience, magic would be undiscovered - in rushing everything, we would never hear its whisper inside."

"You're more trouble than you're worth." "I'm a girl. That's my job."

"I forgot my purse of laughter when I dressed this mornin'," she told me. "Have you not bought anythin' the last few days? Prices have gone up. Pay or starve, it's all one to me."

"Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies-they won't understand."