Michelle Sagara Quotes

Don't miss CAST IN HONOR!

If life were fair, we would never have suffered what we suffered at all; having suffered it and survived, we're still reacting to things that don't exist anymore.

There is never a guarantee, where hope is concerned; hope touches the edge of dream, but it is not a simple dream. It wants work, and sometimes it is bitterly painful―but no life is lived for long without it.

To try. To live through the horror of failure; to endure the guilt. To try again. To make that choice.

They were like gray stone, like the walls of the round room; they gave no impression of life, and they hinted at nothing but surface. His face, pale as ivory, heightened their unusual color; his hair, gray, fell beyond his back. He was not Barrani, but he might as well have been; he was tall, proud and very cold. But his wings crested the rise of drawn hood, and they were white, their pinions folded. Hawklord.

Because sometimes saying it - where only you can hear it, but forcing yourself to find the actual words - is helpful. Or at least it has been for some of my tenants. Not all of them, of course; all of you are different individuals. But some found it helpful - almost as if saying it out loud was an exorcism. It released the words instead of allowing them to remain trapped in their thoughts, wearing deeper and deeper grooves.

They're humanity writ small, and many of them haven't learned how to hide, how to pretend to know things they don't know, how to doubt the things they want to believe in.

The Swords were the city's peacekeepers, something illsuited to Kaylin; the Wolves were its hunters, and often, its killers. And the Hawks? The city's eyes. Ears. The people who actually solved crimes.

Kyuthe," he said. "Kaylin. An'Teela. You carry my heart in your arms.

Because not all weakness has to be weakness. Weakness, strength, power, failure - they're just words, and we can define what the words mean if we have the will or the courage.

But home, for us, is each other, no matter where we happen to be.

Right or wrong is decided on the basis of a significant moment.

You never wanted to stand out. You never wanted to attract too much attention, because some of that attention would be bad.

Maybe home is something we have to make, and remake, over and over. But it's hard to make things when you're afraid―or you're certain - that they'll just be broken.

I have always thought it unwise to let fear be your personal guide." "Which one would you prefer? Love has its problems as well, if you listen to old stories." "Ah, but I would argue that that is not love - it is fear. It is fear of the loss of love. But we might spend idle hours arguing the definition of the word love, and I have dinner prepared.

She outpaced Severn. Whole years of her life had been narrowly defined by the fact that she couldn't even keep up.

Kaylin hated politics. Hated them. She hated the stupid decisions, the game playing, the grandstanding. She hated political decisions made by people who never had to do any of the law's actual work. She hated the pervasive sense of superiority and smugness that underlay all of the rules.

Which would pretty much end most of the lives that Kaylin cared about, although to be fair, it would probably end the other ones, as well.

Hope. Such a simple word, to hold so much. I like it," she added. "I think it's appropriate.

Kaylin glanced at the small dragon, who exhaled the sigh of the long-suffering everywhere.

Climbing was one of her strengths, but she didn't do it with grace - which, come to think, was an apt description of the way she lived the rest of her life, as well.

Communication was often like this, though: stumbling, tripping, getting up again. Moving, however clumsily, forward.

No," she told them all. Looking up at the creature, or across at it, she said softly, "Yes, it's what I want. But I also want wings. I want to be beautiful. I want to be strong. I want to be perfect.
"If every wish I ever had, if every fear, could become real, instantly, I would destroy the world.

How much did a Dragon hide, when he walked the streets of the city?

Her hair was a flyaway mess, and her cheeks, she knew, would be a little too red for dignity - but she often had to choose between dignity and living another hour.

Kaylin's memory was like a kaleidoscope; fractured, but in a way that was arresting, even beautiful, if looked at the right way. As a child, Catti's hair had been bright red, but it had shaded

Trying is fine. Failing is inevitable. Don't let it devour you.

Evanton creaked his way toward the sound of the bell at a speed that made snails look fast - if he decided to answer the door at all. If you made the mistake of ringing the bell while he was already on the way, he got angry. Kaylin had learned this early. On the other hand, if he'd actually failed to hear the door when she was expected, and she failed to ring the bell a second time, he also got angry. It was very much lose-lose, with hope wedged in to add anxiety.

Hope was cruel. It could be an act of torture far more profound than despair.

Kaylin swiveled in her chair.

There is not a man born among us who dreams - at first - of service, although in the end, many are bent that way.

When you worshipped someone, you placed a burden on them. You expected them to live up to your ideals, expected them to be worthy of your worship. And who could do that? Not

Where are you going?" Kaylin stopped. "I'm following you." "Which is usually done from behind.

She'd learned early that if she couldn't be on time to save her life, she'd better cultivate the unseemly art of groveling.

Angry Leontine Sergeant, angry Aerian Commander in Chief, slightly bored Dragon, and panicked human - you could practically call it a racial congress, with humans in their usual position.

Ignorance and stupidity are not the same. Remember that. Ignorance can always be alleviated.

She told him she was fine. Except the words she used were No. I'm not.

Geography bends to the dictate of will.

What humans do when they're desperate is just an expression of fear. What they do when they feel safe is a better indication of whether or not you can trust them.

Yes, attempts at murder are often misunderstandings. Unless it involves armies, in which case it's diplomacy.

He wasn't as tall as Tanner, and he wasn't as broad; he had the catlike grace of a young Leontine, and his hair was a burnished copper, something that reddened in caught light. But his eyes were the blue she remembered, cold blue, and if he had new scars - and he did - they hadn't changed his face enough to remove it from her memory.

His hair was a dark, dark black - Barrani black - but his build was all wrong for Barrani. He was a shade taller than Teela, and about twice her width. Three times, maybe. His hands were empty; he carried no obvious weapon. Wore no open medallion. The hand that he lifted in ritual greeting, palm out, was smooth and un-adorned.

There, in thin blue lines that could be called spidery, was the mark of Lord Nightshade - the

Life wears us down around the edges. The stress of life and its neces­sities cracks things. We learn to protect ourselves. We learn not to let so much of the world in, because some­times it's all too much, and we don't have the resilience we need to survive it. When we're six, we make best friends easily. When we're fifty, we don't. That's age and expe­rience for you.

But books are different. We can let books in. We can wrap them up in our hearts. We can approach them as if we're still young and open. Even so, it's not as simple. Because we're not as simple.

(Source: State of the Writer, sort of, September 2015 - blog post)

The children watch,' she added softly. As if the children were the keepers of all conscience. And maybe, Kaylin thought, just maybe, they were a good keeper. To protect your children, you struggled with your anger, mastered it. Your struggled to explain away your fear, or theirs. There probably wasn't all that much difference, in the end. You worked hard to be worthy of the trust they so carelessly - and completely - placed in you.

But she only knew one way of conquering fear, and that was to charge into it, blindly.

Some days, Kaylin fervently wished that she had already passed Adult 101 and could get on with being the person she wanted to be.