Julie C. Dao Quotes

Though Jade had never seen or heard the ocean, she thought Xifeng's voice might sound like the sea - gentle beneath the wind, but hiding wild, untamed depths below the surface.

A ruler has little time for kindness. He does not give without expecting something in return. He can't afford to.

But in weakness, you find your strength. It takes no small amount of courage to open yourself up," the Empress said gently. "You leave pieces of yourself in the ones you love. Is that not the greatest power, to endure in that way?

Isn't' it better to give up a fraction of your freedom to gain tenfold in happiness, even for a short time?

We learn about ourselves when we learn about others," Jade said. "We respect different ways of life as food, traditions, and storytelling are shared across borders.

Love is weakness. You open yourself up to choices you'd never make if you heart were your own.

Bravery isn't just about being strong and handy with a sword. Sometimes it's about resolve...or deciding whether to face a past you'd rather forgot.

Love does not always come with marriage, Your Majesty. Marriage may strengthen a woman, but love weakens her. She has more to lose.

Beauty is all very well. But it is merely the gleam of the sword, the chief eunuch said. It is the mind that provides the sharp blade, and without that, well. We have a pretty piece of metal and not a weapon at all.

But then again, we all have dreams within reach, Jade thought. We have only to shape them to fit ourselves.

It must be like using an apothecary's scale....Knowing when to add more of this or that. Evening out the two sides so they seem equal, though one may hold only dirt and the other gold dust.

How their slippery hearts had scorched her throat, how the hot metallic tang of blood had given way to a roar of satisfaction that shook her whole being.

Save me, she thought. Save me from this love dark road.

I tell you a throne is a greater imposition than it is a gift.

I'm sick to death of lords and kings and emperors. What do they do but play games and let their people pay the price in blood?

You understand, as I do, that wealth and family mean nothing if a person is not willing to prove his full worth.

She would wrap her coils around him in tender confinement and be not his captive, but his captor.

She, too, was part of this game in which women could only hope to survive by keeping each other down.

Isn't it better to wake up each day, living for the present rather than waiting for the future?

Women are complicated creatures.

Xifeng tilted her face, a pale moon in the evening of the water. She felt like a goddess in the shimmering light. She was a poem come to life, each vein was a lyric.