Mercedes Lackey Quotes

Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive.

Kethry had once described summoning as being like balancing on a rooftree while screaming an epic poem in a foreign language at the top of your lungs.

Unlike Champions, Godmothers don't have to keep undergoing ridiculous ordeals every time one turns around. Our idea of besting a dragon is not to chop it into bits, but to get it to sit down to tea.

I'm not out to disturb anybody's faith. I happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that has a dual deity and operates on a lunar schedule. It suits my needs. If you happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that features a single masculine deity and operates on a solar schedule, fine. I don't give a fat damn. What matters is what you do, not who's name you do it in.

She just dropped it and ran!!

The people who keep coping, keep trying, no matter how many blows Fate takes at them. Nobody'll make a song about them, but they're heroes all the same.

He is an excellent fellow, but he has one deep flaw. He cannot cook. In fact, he has been known to ruin boiling water.: Mags

There are more nasty things in pretty packages in the world than most people would believe.

Then he heard a wild, high-pitched cackling that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. It wasn't sane, that laugh. In fact, it was the laughter of someone who never had more than a nodding acquaintance with sanity.

Muddling along ... is the great secret to life ... You take the good and the bad and cope as they happen - Gallen in Intrigues

One day,' Orest said, looking at him comically, 'you will say something that is less than practical and sensible, something that is driven by no forethought and nothing but passion, and I will probably collapse with shock.

Keth, power brings with it the need to make moral judgments; history proves that. You have no choice but to make those decisions.

[Harrier] locked eyes with Zanattar. He couldn't remember another time in his life when he'd been this angry and hadn't hit something.

Three things know a secret-
First; the lady in a dream,
The dog that barks no warning,
And a maid that does not scream.

My parents can take themselves off on a scenic tour of hell before they tell me who my friends will be, Gan said pleasantly.

Healer Myrim made no attempt to conceal the fact that Orthallen's treachery had not surprised her. Nor did she conceal that his demise gave her a certain grim satisfaction. But then, she might well be forgiven such uncharitable thoughts; she was one of the four Healers who were tending Talia's wounds.

Talia was always intimidated by her presence, and always felt she looked hoydenish and disheveled, no matter how carefully she'd prepared herself for confrontations.

Time doesn't. All that Time does is make it more distant, put more space between you and what happened. It doesn't heal anything. I don't know how or what does the healing, but it isn't Time.

I think I know why you never married, Sarah."
"Well, and I reckoned if I wanted something that'd come and go as he pleased, take me for granted, and ignore me when he chose, I'd get a cat. And if I wanted something I'd always have to be picking up after, getting into trouble, but slavishly devoted,
I'd get a dog.

It is a hunger with me, books. I had rather read than eat, I do think.

The idea that they were going to have to-eventually-go someplace that was even hotter than this was now was worrying Harrier, but there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment. He couldn't imagine why anybody would want to live here if they had a choice. Sometimes, he thought, people were idiots.

Elspeth had the joyous task of breaking the news to the rest of the Council. There was no such accord among the political leaders of Valdemar as there was among her military leaders.
Lord Gartheser was speechless with outrage and shock; Bard Hyron was dazed. Lady Kester and Lady Cathan, still seething over Orthallen's accusations of complicity with the slavers, were surprised, but not altogether unhappy. Father Aldon had closeted himself in the tiny chapel of the Keep; Lord Gildas was with him. Healer Myrim made no attempt to conceal the fact that Orthallen's treachery had not surprised her. Nor did she conceal that his demise gave her a certain grim satisfaction. But then, she might well be forgiven such uncharitable thoughts; she was one of the four Healers who were tending Talia's wounds.
Once the bare bones had been told to the Councillors as a group, Elspeth went to each of these Councillors in turn, privately. She gave a simple explanation of what had occurred, but would answer no questions. Questions, she told them, must wait until Talia had recovered enough to tell them all more.

Still, she assured herself as she unpacked her suitcase on the bed, Marx wrote his Manifesto one word at a time, with but pen and ink. Modest tools that moved a world! So shall we.

If it is stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
(a Shin'a'in saying)

And truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism. When those in power intend to abuse that power, they look to an outside enemy in order to trick their people into pressing the means to their own abuse into the hands of the abusers. If an enemy does not exist, it will be manufactured, and all manner of horrors attributed to it, so that anyone who demands truth and accountability is set upon as being unpatriotic. And so that, when someone said to be an enemy is found, there will be few questions asked about guilt or innocence, and many faces averted when he is taken away.

Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one to put it there.

Platitudes might satisfy for a short time, father - but soon or late, the people will realize they are being fed form without substance. What I tell them must be the truth, and I must believe it, and I must hold to it.

Jett Gallatin expected trouble in Alsop, Texas - but not zombies.

To get back to the original subject, most dragons prefer to be friends at a distance. Occasionally meet where the edges of our territories join - that sort of thing. Chat, exchange news, perhaps play a round of the riddle game, then go our separate ways.

The night-sylphs, all of them, were armed with what looked like swords of glass. The pixies and the tiny ones were armed too, if not with knives and miniature swords , then with their own long claws. The pixies were creatures the size of dolls, but with strange attenuated bodies and long limbs, mostly clothed in colourful rags, and with dragonfly wings. Their joints were knobby, and their faces more animalistic. The smaller ones were also winged, but looked half-human and half-insect, with touches of bat and bird.

Why would you want to make them happy?" Amberdrake turned back to his little friend, and sat with a sad smile on his face. "Because they are bitter, unhappy people, and very little else makes them happy. They say what they do out of envy, for any number of reasons. It may be because I lead a more luxurious life than they, or at least they believe I do. It may be because there are many people who do call me friend, and those are all folk of great personal worth; a few of them are people that occupy high position and deservedly so. Perhaps it is because they cannot do what I can, and for some reason, this galls them. But they have so little else that gives them pleasure, I see no reason to deprive them of the few drops of enjoyment they can extract from heaping scorn and derision on me." Gesten shook his head. "Drake, you're crazy. But I already knew that. I'm getting some sleep; this is all too much for me. Good night." "Good night, Gesten," Amberdrake said

The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.

I can't help it; present me with a situation, and I have to think about both sides of it. I can try to suppress it, but I cannot shut off the way I think. Once knowledge is gained, there's no going back to ignorance. I think about what the other feels. I can't stop it,

By Gaia's left breast, Hades, you really are a moron,

Little Robin had been brought by Lord Orthallen - although he had the feeling that his lord did not realize it. The boy was a part of his household, though Orthallen seemed to have long since forgotten the fact; and when the order came to pack up the household and move to the Border, Robin found himself in the tail of the baggage train, with no small bewilderment. He'd been at a loss in the encampment, wandering about until someone had seen him and realized that a small child had no place in a camp preparing for warfare. So he was sent packing; first off with Elspeth, then pressed into service by the Healers. They'd set him to fetching and carrying for Dirk, thinking that the child was far too young to be able to pick anything up from the casual talk around him, and that Dirk wouldn't think to interrogate a child as young as he.
They were wrong on both counts.
Robin was very much aware of what was going on - not surprising, since it concerned his adored Talia. He was worried sick, and longing for an adult to talk to. And Dirk was kind and gentle with him - and had he but known it, desperate enough for news to have questioned the rats in the walls if he thought it would get him anywhere.

Dirk knew all about Robin and his adoration of Talia. If anyone knew where she was being kept and what her condition was, that boy would.
Dirk bided his time. Eventually the Healers stopped overseeing his every waking moment. Finally there came a point when they began

What is courage?" its chorus asked
and the song answered, "It is to give when hope is gone, when there is no chance that men may call you a hero, when you have tried and failed and rise to try again." It asked the same of friendship, answering that "the friend stands beside you when you are right and all others despise you for it.

Parents always know what strings control your heart and soul. After all, they are the ones who tied them there.

Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship, as they threaten all relationships at one time or another, remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

They didn't have to be true to be good.

These people are civilians, Moira. Look at them. They didn't try to hurt Holcomb's workers and they're certainly no threat to the Cabal." I smiled and waved my right hand, palm out. "Come on. You know these aren't the druids you're looking for." No one even chuckled. So much for diffusing the situation with humor.

Getting angry over something that won't change is like seeing what happens if you hit your hand with a hammer over and over again, and being surprised each time when it hurts. So you might as well stop doing it.

Cats. You can't live with them, and the fur's too thin for a rug.

Acting on what you want is something only children think is an adult prerogative.

Good hips. Breed like cow, strong like bull, dumb like ox. Hitch to plow when horse dies.

I have only one question, my sister and my friend," she said, so earnestly that Kethry came out of her own fear and looked deeply into the shadowed eyes that met hers. "And that is this; which way do you want them sliced - lengthwise, or widthwise?

If the pupil was worthy to be trained, there came a time when the master must allow the pupil to train himself, to use and become all that the master had seen in him, fulfilling his true potential.

Why, you mean you didn't get abducted and dragged across country purely to make us a story for us to chew over endlessly?" asked Pip, tossing his shock of tow-colored hair indignantly. "The nerve!

There's a saying in Hardorn," she continued. "'You shouldn't attempt to teach a goat to sing. It will waste your time, hurt your ears, and annoy the goat.' I can say without fear of contradiction that the goat is getting annoyed.

We're given a choice in our lives, to make things better, or worse, or merely endure like sheep. I choose to make things better, as much as I can.

Van, Van, we're only simple, fallible mortals - we aren't saints, we aren't angels - we fall on our faces and make errors and sometimes people die of them - sometimes people we love dearly -

I always work from an outline, so I know all the of the broad events and some of the finer details before I begin writing the book.

I'm tired of being alone, and fighting my battles alone.

Don't you see, Stef? It's not that I'm serving Valdemar, it's that I'm helping to preserve the kind of people who leave the world better than they found it, and trying to stop the ones who take instead of giving.

[ ... ] what the hell do I do about a broken lifebond?"
He shook his head, obviously at a loss. "I can't tell you; I don't know. I don't Heal minds, I Heal bodies. And I don't know of anyone who Heals hearts.

In a calm, clear voice, she suggested that the wyrsa in question could do several highly improbable, athletically difficult and possibly biologically impractical things involving its own mother, a few household implements, and a dead fish.

If you would rise, do so alone.

Better, I thought, not to touch at all than to touch and bring hurt upon myself and others. Better to do nothing than to make a move and have it be the wrong one. But even deciding to not touch or to be nothing is a decision, Vanyel, and by deciding not to touch, so as to avoid hurt, I then hurt those who tried to touch me. He

We, the Sworn Sisterhood, do solemnly vow to take back Acadia from those who are responsible for the scourge of the dragon and the tempests. We will fight them with our hands and our weapons. We will fight them with the power of our conviction. We will face the enemy without fear. We will take the enemy down and bring the enemy to justice and there is nothing that can stand in our way.

Mister Cameron - I have read the unexpurgated Ovid, the love poems of Sappho, the Decameron in the original, and a great many texts in Greek and Latin histories that were not though fit for proper gentlemen to read, much less proper ladies. I know in precise detail what Caligula did to, and with, his sisters, and I can quote it to you in Latin or in my own translation if you wish. I am interested in historical truth, and truth in history is often unpleasant and distasteful to those of fine sensibility. I frankly doubt that you will produce anything to shock me.

You marry who you think your beloved is, and then discover who they really are over the years. It's that discovery that makes a marriage work.

There was nothing we could do to stop whatever was going on, and there was no point in trying to imagine what was being done. I come from farm folk, Herald. We know when there's nothing to be done you might as well get some sleep, because when there is something to be done you're going to wish you'd had some.

Priests confine broad truths into narrow doctrines, because more rules mean that they have more power. Priests mistake their own prejudice for conscience and mistake what they personally fear for what should universally be feared. Priests look inward to their own small souls and try to impress that smallness on the world, when they should be looking at the greatness of the universe and trying to impress that upon their souls. Priests forget they owe everything to their gods and begin to think the world owes everything to them . . . : the cat stopped, and shook his head. :Power is a poison.

We all know what we should have done as we look backward. Yet looking backward further still, we may say that all goes as the Wild Magic wills. And we must look forward if we are to live long enough to look backward.

If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.

In general, though, I would say that when a government is more concerned with keeping itself in power, and keeping its officials in luxury, whether they were elected to the posts, appointed, or inherited the position, then that government is abusive as well. Government is what takes care of things beyond you. Good government cares for the well-being of the people it serves. Abusive government cares only for its own well-being. The fewer the people, the less government you need. Does that seem clear to you?

Now you're just being stubborn, and I am not going to sit here and tell you what you already know, when you know you know it, and I know you know it, and you know that I know you know it.:

Yeah, and if I have to choose between being eaten by the Endarkened and telling my Da I'm a Wildmage, I'm not sure which I'd pick.

Assume the attitude of prayer, and in time, the attitude will become prayer.

It is only a fairy tale. They always end sadly.

Love now–a good, solid love is something infinitely rarer and more difficult to maintain, because you don't know everything your partner is feeling. Love takes work. Love means being able to apologize and mean it when you blunder. Love is worth fighting for!

Always seeing a child as the innocent left you open to not seeing when the child was scheming to take you down. It

Often, one can be in love with who they think someone is, while being blinded by their own desires. And just as often, instead of being in love with a lover, one is in love with love.

Truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism.

Not forgiving someone hurts you worse than it hurts him ... even if he doesn't deserve to be forgiven ... Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one who put it there.

Do you know the kind of things that live up there? ... things without names 'cause no one who's seen 'em has lived long enough to give them any name besides 'AAAARG!

For a country whose people ceased to believe in magic soon lost much of their ability to imagine and dream, and before long, they ceased to believe
or hope
for anything.

I'm so bad with people I can't even win an argument with myself.

There will always be bad times ... It's the getting back up again that counts." - Gallen in "Intrigues

Evil working in subtler fashion; marriages that proved to be no more then legalized slavery, and the careful manipulation of a bright and sensitive mind until its owner truly believed with all her heart in her own worthlessness. Betrayal, not once, but many times over.

will integrate you into the

We can rebuild. We can't resurrect." I

Or, as Nikolas had said, in tones of admiration, She can tell you to go to hell in a way that will send you running of to pack your bags.

Aleksia laughed at her, putting a world of scorn and withering contempt into her voice
just as Kay would probably do in a temper. In fact, everything that she was doing now was to test her to see if her own self-worth was strong enough to stand up to the worst the one she loved could deliver. It is so much harder to take a hint of scorn from the beloved than a verbal battering from an enemy ... Kay would always be more intelligent, more clever than Gerda was. She had to know, deep inside her, that what she offered was just as important and just as valuable as wit and intelligence.

I'll 'ave 'er there well afore, ma'am," the cabby said, impressed by the guinea, if by nothing else. He chirruped to his horse, who trotted off without needing a slap of the reins or a touch of the whip.

Of three things be wary- of a feather on a cat, The shepherd eating mutton, And a guardsman that is fat.

If you don't look after your fellow man, if you think that what you want is always more important than what anyone else wants or needs, you're not human, and that's that.

That's how you tell a merc is dead; he just stops collecting paychecks.

This I think I have learned: where there is love, the form does not matter, and the gods are pleased. This I have observed: what occurs in nature, comes by the hand of nature, and if the gods did not approve, it would not be there
~ Moondance k'Treva (Magic's Pawn)

Three things never trust in- The maiden sworn as pure, The vows a king has given, And an ambush that is sure.

I'd been going to study Pre-Flowering History," Tiercel offered.
"Now you're living it," Kave said.

Although you feel relief now, this is likely to be the source of many sleepless nights for you. You will lie awake, look upon your heart, and find it unlovely. You will be certain that ( ... ) you are the greatest of monsters. This is a good thing; although you may forgive yourself, you must never come to think that your actions were in any way justifiable. But- ( ... ) Being a sane, honorable human being is not always comfortable.

Among the dragons, the prohibition against asking direct questions did not exist, and-as Harrier discovered immediately-dragons were even more outrageous gossips than sailors.

You have a long history," he said, when Lanya indicated her story was finished.
"Ah, Harrier, were I to tell you a long story, we should be here for a sennight, perhaps more. Long stories are best saved for deep winter, when the days are short and time grows heavy." Lanya glanced at the sky.

When warriors feel afraid they lack something, it is only because they are forgetful. They have forgotten how capable they truly are.

his nose in the door and

You are eccentric when you have enough money to not be considered crazy,

what Mr. Bishop talked to Tomas about was living with them and controlling them, as if the ability to start fires with his mind was some kind of large dog Tomas had accidentally adopted and was now going to have to learn to take care of properly, like it or not. He

Doctor MacKenzie says Sometimes I think the Victorians had the right idea. When you lost a family member back then you were suppose to be in full mourning, dress in nothing but black, for a whole year. Then you went into something they called 'half mourning' for another full year, adn during those two years, you were pretty much expected to have emotional breakdowns, you could do it whenever you felt you needed to, and everybody would support you. Now?, A month after a tragedy, maybe two, and you're expected to be all better-or down pills so you can pretend you are.

She would never truly be her own woman if she allowed fear and old memories to dictate where she would or would not go.

And payment exacted for the crimes and weaknesses of a lifetime. Her hands shook, and tears prickled at the back of her eyes, but she couldn't even cry. Something horrible was going to happen to her, and she knew she deserved it, but she couldn't help shrieking inside that it wasn't fair, that she hadn't known what would happen back when she could still change things, back while it would have done any good. And now, nothing she could do could ever make up for what she'd done. She didn't think she could do good if she tried.