Tamora Pierce Quotes

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

And if wishes were pies, I`d weigh more than I do.
Sir Myles of Barony Olau

We are what we're made to be.

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

If I say you're a goatherd's son, you say, 'Yes, Lord Ralon.'"
Alanna gasped with fury. "I'd as soon kiss a pig! Is that what you've been doing-kissing pigs? Or being kissed?

It was like trying to balance on a pair of knife blades. Who had thought of this mad form of travel in the first place? And why had no one locked them up before they passed their dangerous ideas on to others?

You haven't been bit till a dragon does it.

Girls are 50% of the population. We deserve to represent 50% of the heroes.

He liked me to help him when he did things. He explained what I didn't know, warned me when to stand aside, never told me to get out of his way because he could do it faster, and thanked me for helping. There were moments when he needed me to rescue him, and he never blamed me for it, or got angry about it.

Sandry: "I am silly, now and then. My mother said I was, anyway."
Daja: "If you know, you can stop it."
Sandry: "Then you've never been silly or you'd know it just creeps up without any warning.

No more is your master a god, Nobility, but he wants offerings from all. When Black God claims us, who will be punished for giving worship and power to a false god? The prince? Or Banjiku?

If you have to hit--hit low.

Stefan spat. Oh, aye, he fell. O' course, Master Ralon helped him fall, several times. Poor li'l tyke didn't have a chance.

Well, label me very impressed and ship me to Carthak!

Sir, people never wanted me to make it to squire. They won't like it any better if I become a knight. I doubt I'll ever get to command a force larger than, well, just me.'

Raoul shook his head. 'You're wrong.' As she started to protest, he raised a hand. 'Hear me out. I have some idea of what you've had to bear to get this far, and it won't get easier. But there are larger issues than your fitness for knighthood, issues that involve lives and livelihoods. Attend,' he said, so much like Yayin, one of her Mithran teachers, that Kel had to smile.

'At our level, there are four kids of warrior,' he told Kel. He raised a fist and held up one large finger. 'Heroes, like Alanna the Lioness. Warriors who find dark places and fight in them alone. This is wonderful, but we live in the real world. There aren't many places without any hope or light.'

He raised a second finger. 'We have knights- plain, everyday knights, like your brothers. They patrol their borders and protect their tenants, or they go into troubled areas at the king's command and sort them out. They fight in battles, usually against other knights. A hero will work like an everyday knight for a time- it's expected. And most knights must be clever enough to manage alone.'

Kel nodded.

'We have soldiers,' Raoul continued, raising a third finger. 'Those warriors, including knights, who can manage so long as they're told what to do. These are more common, thank Mithros

At last Niko dropped his hands, and opened his eyes. His perfect tree illusion solidified and settled.
"Very nice," said Briar with approval. "Couldn't have done better myself"
"Couldn't do it at all yourself," muttered Tris.
Briar ignored her. "But you'd never find a cork oak in these parts. Too cold."
Niko looked down his nose at the boy. "I beg your pardon?"
Briar shrugged. "Just thought I'd mention it."
Niko glared.

That's Lalasa, Kel's maid. She sews and knows all sorts of ways to hurt you.

Ersken gathered the dice, put them in the cup they had used for play, and tucked it inside one bound Rat's shirt.
"Let that be a lesson to you not to gamble," he told the Rat soberly. "The trickster asks you pay for any luck you may have, one way or another."
"Bless the boy, he's a priest with it," one of the Goddess warriors said with a grin. "After this, laddie, what's say I take you home and rub some of that off yez?"
Ersken actually winked at her! "Forgive me, gracious warrior, but my woman would turn me into something unnatural if I took you up on your kind offer," he replied as if he truly regretted it. "She's a mage and I'd best stay devoted.

Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?

What has that to do with the price of peas in Persopolis?

Ozorne, my precious, where are you?
- Rikash Moonsword

If I were useful, you wouldn't know it was me.

And if they don't believe us, I can give them the ghost eyes, you can go all big and threatening, Farmer can do his cracknob simpleton, and my lady can don her nobleness. We'll do all right.

Men don't think and differently from women - they just make more noise about being able to.

You've learned to hate. Now you must learn to forgive, or you'll have enemies at your back forever. He looked my straight in the eyes. That will be hard. The harder the goal, the more important it is, I said.

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

The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter - learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me! - The Goddess

We could mate. In a year our nestlings would be large enough to mob anyone we like ... Should I begin to court you? Do you like grubs or ants better? ... I will be here. In case you change your mind about mating.

Don't worry. We'll farm, soon's he finishes wi' that new-style Scanran fertilizer.

Someday I must read this scholar Everyone. He seems to have written so much
all of it wrong.

Books are still the main yardstick by which I measure true wealth.

And now you're off to Port Caynn. Watch them sailor lads. They'll have your skirts up and a babe in your belly afore you know what you're about."
"Everyone keep warning me about sailors," I complained. "Why can't someone tell the sailors to stay clear of me?"
Granny snorted. "Oh, you're the fierce one now! Just take care no one else catches you unawares and knocks you on the nob!

When I told you don't touch me to wake me, ever, because I've been in a war and I react violently, you respected me." For a plant person, Rosethorn could sound like iron when she made a point with someone stupid. "Evvy was in that same war. She fought as hard as any adult - harder, sometimes. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that she may suffer the same effects.

Scrying the wind is very difficult, Tris," Niko said gently. "It's like scrying the future. You're assailed with thousands of images - fragments, really. It drives many who try it insane." "You learned to scry the future," Tris pointed out. "And a number of people have informed me they think I am mad," Niko replied, his voice very dry.

You have a destiny. You aren't allowed to know it.

Our gods are much too busy in our lives for us to ignore them. (Myles)

Rosethorn had gone to her room the moment Niko started to cough. Now she returned with her syrup and a firm look in her eye. "I thought you were having trouble last night. Drink this." She poured some into a cup and held it out to him.
Niko looked at it as if she offered him rotten fish. "I am fine. I am per-" He couldn't even finish the sentence for coughing.
"It's not bad," said Tris, crossing her fingers behind her back. "Really, tastes like-like mangoes."
Niko looked at her, then took the cup and downed its contents. The four watched with interest as his cheeks turned pale, then scarlet. "That's terrible (exclamation point)" he cried, his voice a thin squeak.
"Maybe I was thinking of some other syrup," Tris remarked with a straight face.

There's plenty more fish in the sea than Prince Jonathan," he told her softly. "And this particular fish loves you with all his crooked heart."
-George to Alanna

I wish we had a sign that this flaming dragon is part of an attack or something. Those dung heaps might think it's just one of their own monsters enjoying the sunrise.

You fed it.' The badger sighed. 'Sometimes I think you'll feed anything.

My dear, why send Aly to wait on us?" he wanted to know. "I know you were busy with your domestic arrangements, but surely one of the girls with experience waiting on the nobility would have served."He smiled kindly at Aly. "Though you did a creditable job."
"Aly isn't used to Bronau as we are, my dear," Winnamine explained. "She might see what would be hidden to us. And she has certain useful skills."
"Useful?"Mequen asked, raising his brows at Aly."I read lips, Your Grace," Aly said meekly. "And I can tell you that the prince is telling the truth about why he came."
"What? How could you possibly know that?" the
startled duke demanded.
"Liars blink more when they lie, or they look away while they answer," Aly explained. She did not want
anyone to know about her Sight if she could help it.
Only a fool told all of her secrets. "The prince is frightened." She looked at the duke. "Did you see he was sweating when he talked about the situation at court?"
Mequen raised his eyebrows. "All of us sweat when we think of the royal court," he said drily. "I am so accustomed to it that I didn't even notice. Truly, the
god blessed us when he sent you.

Three nights a week your Lalasa closes her shop early," Buri told her after a sip from her cup. "She teaches city girls--commoners--holds, blows, and kicks that will help them to escape an attacker. She learned all that somewhere. And it does girls more good than your courting frostbite to shoot a bow you don't even like. There's now a demand for arms teachers for young noblewomen. Seven female Riders this year asked me for references to get them such posts. And may I remind you that a particular law is being revised right now because you had the nerve to tell King Jonathan it should be changed?"
"I still should have reported Vinson at the Temple of the Goddess," Kel said stubbornly.
"Very well, you should have done," Buri agreed, her face sober. "Next time, you will. And while it won't heal his victims, here's something for you to drink besides self-pity. No court in the land could put him through what he did to those girls. The Chamber did. I've seen the marks of beatings. The Chamber is making him feel every blow, kick, and punch he doled out. And I bet that will continue for a while.

Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short.

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.

He is a horse who will burn and bloat and explode in the sun. Put him back in the oven and let him cook until he's done.

I'm about to commence four years of obeying the cause of a bruiser on a horse. I refuse to put down what might be the last book I see for months.

Come on, Stork Boy, aren't you excited?

The girl looked at the mess she had made, at the ax, the shattered immortal, and the gouts of dark blood all around, and vomited.

I want to marry her, when I grow up to be a man.

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

Beka: 'Will you keep me here forever? My hands are sticky.'
Dale: 'I'll lick the honey off,

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

He's just rather more lively than most fossils.

A friend had commented once that Neal had a gift for making someone want to punch him just for saying hello.

Most humans think the appearance of quiet is quiet. They do not see that sometimes the enemy is as quiet as the serpent. Only when it has stolen all of their eggs will they know bad walks in the quiet as well as the noisy.

Ralon didn't make anyone else put his tack away?" Alex wanted to know. "You didn't see anything strange?"
Alanna didn't look up. "No." It wasn't strange , she excused her lie mentally. Ralon does things like that all the time.

We're just frisking like little captive lambkins.

A noble madiden must convery diginity and chstity wihotut appearing to think about either one. Let common-born girls tuddle in the hay with their loutish swains. the future of your familys bloodline and your furture lord's bloodline should be your grearest concern. Let no man but one of your family embrace you. Let no man but your betrothed kiss any more than your fingertips; let your betrothed kiss you only on fingers, cheek, or forhead, lest he think you unchaste. and enver allow yourself to be alone wiht a man, to safeguard the percioud jewel of your reputaiotn. No well-born maigen e vetr suffered form keeping her cuitors at arms length. You cbhastity will make you a prize to your future husbands house and an honor to your own.
- form adivce to younge noblewomen, by lady fronia of whitehall (in Maren). given to ally on her twelfth birhdya by her godmother, Queen Thayet,

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.

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So long as there are nobles and commoners, the wealthy and the poor, those with power will be heard, and those without ignored. That's the world.

You can tell all Namorn this is what happens when I am vexed," she informed him softly.
"Little *bitch*," he snapped.
Sandry looked him over soberly. "If you had understood that earlier, we could have avoided this unpleasantness," she replied.

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.

Nestor beckoned to me and I dismounted with care.I handed the reins to the boy with thanks. I do not wish to see that hard-charging bag of bones again, unless it is in my soup.

Tris: "What if I don't want to cut up aloe leaves?"
Rosethorn: "Ask me if I care what you want.

When it was her own doing, she was always tempted to skip a day, or just glance down, then get back to the ground. Kel had to force herself to keep her vow.

Your place in life you can always change, whether you have the gift or not. But you cannot change what the gods have made you. The sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be.

I am not wise, but I can always learn.

She promised herself that from now on she would try to sit as close to Neal as possible. She could not kick someone eight chairs away.

When in doubt, shoot the wizard.

People are jackals, always willing to feed off someone else's kill.

As I recall, this word's use means somewhere there is a tree that is now a - a two-legger.
-Numair Salmalin

I myself have noticed my growing resemblance to a daffodil.

Take care or her, Coram Smythesson!"
Alanna's old friend looked surprised. "And here I thought the best part of ridin' with a knight was that she would be lookin' after me.

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

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 thanks was what I wanted," Sandry replied in the same language, "I would be sad indeed. Since I don't want it, I won't miss it.

She got to her feet and tucked her fingers into her armpits to warm them, glaring at Briar and Parahan as she walked over to the mules. It wasn't fair that men didn't have to twist themselves into knots to pee!

Threats are the last resort of a man with no vocabulary.

Scary with you is better than scary without you

You don't think history gets rewritten, sometimes?

At the house, the gathering broke up quickly. Sarai announced that she had a headache and needed to lie down. Without her to hold them together, the young nobles chose to go home. The gloss had been stripped from the afternoon.

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

Nawat grinned. "I was helping to steal soldiers who couldn't keep up."

"What do you do with them?" she asked, curious. "I haven't heard of bodies being found."

"Nor will you," Nawat informed her, sitting on a corner of the worktable. "They were still alive when we gave them to my warriors at the edge of the jungle."
He picked up Aly's hand and laced his fingers with hers. "My warriors will be able to say they last saw the missing soldiers alive, when the troops went on a visit to the jungle."

Aly walked her free fingers over their entwined hands. "But why would Crown soldiers visit the jungle?"

"They didn't think they would at first," Nawat admitted. "So my warriors show them the beauties of the deep jungle. They take away all the things the soldiers have of the civilized world, such as clothes and weapons and armor, so the soldiers will appreciate the jungle with their entire bodies. But my warriors have seen jungle before, so they get bored and leave. The soldiers stay longer."

"Like the tax collectors," Aly whispered, awed by the beauty of what he described. "Take away all they have and leave them to survive the jungle. If you're questioned under truthspell, you can say they were alive when you left them. And the only way they could survive naked out there . . ."
Nawat was shaking his head. Aly nodded. "I take it you don't leave them near any trails."

"They are there to appreciate the jungle that

Alanna didn't approve of lying, but in a pinch a lie was sometimes better than the truth.

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.

Curse him for being all tight muscle, with ivory skin and a mouth as soft as rose petals. Curse him for having hair as fair as the sun, and eyes as black as night. Curse him for having the grace of a cat and deft, cool hands.
And now I am having the same argument on paper that I have in my own head on too many nights. I know my choice is sensible, but it isn't my common sense I think with, those times Rosto's stolen a kiss from me.

It's the only bad thing about animals," she told Cleon. "Most don't live as long as we do." "I know, sweet," Cleon said, kissing first one of her eyelids, then the other. "But think how bleak life would be without them.

You come from a race that spends more time murdering your own kind than do all the immortals put together, yet you insist you are better than us.

The fantasy that appeals most to people is the kind that's rooted thoroughly in somebody looking around a corner and thinking, 'What if I wandered into this writer's people here?' If you've done your job and made your people and your settings well enough, that adds an extra dimension that you can't buy.

She rides as a man, goes unveiled as a man, fights as a man. Let her prove herself worthy as a man, worthy of her weapons and of our friendship.

Evvy: "Is she going to eat Jooba-hooba? She looks like she's going to bite him, at least."
Briar: "No - if she bit him, he'd die.

When people say a knight's job is all glory, I laugh and laugh and laugh. Often I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.

Well, laddie, if you've let an old buzzard like me hurt you confidence, you couldn't have had much in the first place.

My new knight mistress is famed for wielding sharp edges: Sword, Knife and Tongue!

Why do I get the feeling that if you give me a hard time, I'll tell all of our year-mates your family nickname is Meathead?

Dale: "No, no
curse it, Beka, you're the prickliest woman I've ever met!"
Goodwin: "No, I am. But she comes very close, I have to say."
- Dale Rowan and Clara Goodwin when Beka didn't want to accept money for being Dale's "luck

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Oh! I'm stupid as well as insane.

He had learned a great deal while he was there, it was true. In particular, he had found that he wasn't certain he could stay in a country where slavery was practiced. He had always thought he would manage to avoid it somehow when he left the university, or that he would become used to it. Now he understood he could not avoid it. The university managed to live slave-free, but it was a lie. The shadow of slavery lay over it. The arena was only the very worst of this way of life. Lesser forms of brutality to men and women were everywhere. When people were bought and sold, it was just too easy for free people to treat them as things. He couldn't face that. Sooner or later he would have to leave his friends and his teachers. He could not stay here.

No one expects a woman busy at her sewing to pay attention to what's being said around her. Nevermind if a man's mother and sister showerd them they heard everything while they stictched, he'll still think a woman who plies her needles saves all her brains for the work. You're a far better spy hemming sheets than if you clank with daggers.

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.