Seven Realms Quotes

How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.

But it's not enough to know right from wrong. You need the strength to do what's right, even when what you want most in the world is the wrong thing.

Nobody's going to hand you anything. You don't get what you don't go after.

She had never felt more alive than when she lay dying in Han Alister's arms.

The time will come when you will be forced to make a choice,” Hanalea said. “When that time comes, choose love.

I have lost everything, Han thought. Then he corrected himself. Every time I think I’ve lost everything, I find there’s still something else to lose.

And it's not just a matter of you hurting me. I will hurt you too, even if I don't want to, I'm not the girl you think I am. And you will remember this conversation , and wish that you'd listened to me.

Crow walked toward her, arms outstretched like a man in a dream, which he was, in a way. Sometimes a dream is enough.

That's what happens when you love someone... you notice and notice and notice.

But maybe it's better to go after something, and not get it, than to not even try.

But I don't want your throne." "Then what do you want?" "You.

Just tell me you don't love me, and I'll let the matter drop." "What?" "What I said. Just say, 'Rai, I don't love you and I never will'. It's that simple." "Raisa, this is getting us nowhere." "Say it!

Tears stung her eyes. She sank her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from him forehead. "Don't you die. don't you dare. I forbid it." As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said.

You couldn’t keep your mouth shut? I’m calling you Glitterhair from now on. Or Talksalot.

Oh, I am getting married," Raisa said sleepily. "You promised me that if I agreed to marry you, that you would make it happen." She extended her hand, the one with the ring Han had given her, and waved it under his nose. "So. It's time to pay up.

Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it's hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.

He swept Raisa up into his arms and kissed her like it was his first, last, and only

I live in the present because the future is always chancy. When it comes to being with you, I'm willing to take the risk.

History,' Mari muttered, as if she'd overheard his thoughts. 'Why do we need to know what happened before we were born?' 'So hopefully we get smarter and don't make the same mistakes again.

You touch me again, you arrogant Ardenine swine, and I swear on the blood of Hanalea the warrior, I will geld you. Do you understand?

What kind of love would drive a man for miles through solid rock?

And, like a fool, she kissed him back. Kissed him a way that would leave no doubt about the way she felt about him. Kissed him because she knew the chances were slim she'd have very many kisses like that in her lifetime. Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.

A vocation is not something you slap on, like a coat of paint, and change whenever you want. A vocation is built into you. You have no choice. If you try to do something else, you fail.

Did the destruction of one dream leave a vacuum that required filling with another? Is a broken heart more vulnerable?

They were like two pieces of a failed star, drawn together by a shared history and a memory of illicit kisses.

Will you give the girl to me?" she said. "Will you let me try?" He nodded, dizzy with relief. "Please, Willo. Please. Save her. It doesn't matter...what happens to me.

The only way to get what you want is to make them more afraid of you than they are of each other.

The answer is no, I would rather marry the Demon King himself than marry you. I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride. And heaven help the one you choose.

She could Captain to his Your Majesty any time.

Plus he was naturally lucky at cards. As Mam had always said, lucky at cards, or lucky at life. One or the other. Not both.

There's something about a roof isn't there? It makes you feel like it doesn't matter what's going on below. All of those things that get in the way of your dreams - you're above them. Anything is possible.

Crow paced back and forth, his form flickering like flame. “It’s been a thousand years, Alister. I never intended for anyone to find it, so it’s very well protected. One little misstep, and you and my line will be history.” “Since when are you so concerned about your line?” Han said. Crow stared at him for a long moment. “Since I found out I had one,

seven wonders of the world and I have to ask for an eighth fill a bottle with some prayers and spend them on hope create an easy route just so I can complicate send my heart down that slippery slope

Haven't you heard about me?" he said, with a tight smile. "I'm really a very dangerous person." And he did look dangerous until he said, "Look, could you watch Dog for me while I'm gone? I can't take him where I'm going.

His aster-blue eyes shown out from a face blackened by bruises and soot, his fair hair glittering in the firelight. Dressed all in black, silhouetted against flame, he looked rather like a demon, raised from the dead, trading for souls on the other side.

Whoa, Rebecca," Talia said smiling even wider, "Walking on the wild side, are we?" Raisa seemed to think the situation needed more explaining. "He - uh - I'm tutoring him." "She is," Han said solemnly. "She's very good. I'm learning a lot." Pearlie snickered. "What's she teaching you?" "Well," Han said, "we're jumping around a lot.

Do not forget duty. But choose love when you can.

Han smiled, then, a bright, charming smile that lit up the room, more dangerous than any blade. All you ever needed was that smile, she thought. I'd have given in immediately.

A moment later, Cat hurtled back into the room as if chased by demons. She stationed herself in front of Raisa, a knife in either hand, all of her genteel patina swept away. "Cuffs! Look sharp! It's him, the whey-faced, gutter-swiving, prig-napping bastard! He's here!" Han looked as mystified as Raisa. "Who's here?

Well, I believe she went in to rescue some Raggers from the pits,” Cuffs said. “She wasn’t all that specific.” “She went in to rescue — why would she do that?” Amon gripped the ironwork, studying the streetlord’s face. Was he lying? And if so, what was the purpose? “Guess she’s kind of taken with us,” Cuffs said. “You know, the glamor of the gang life and all. Getting beat up every other day, arrested for crimes you didn’t commit, long nights in gaol, sleeping in the cold and wet. It’s...seductive.” He raised an eyebrow.

I continue to believe in miracles. But i know that miracles come to those who work very hard

So here's the truth - I love you. I love everything about you – the way you stick up for people even when it costs you. The way you keep trying to do the right thing even when you're not exactly sure what the right thing is. I love how you put words together. You're as skilled with words as any knife fighter with a blade. You can put an enemy down on his back, or you can raise people up so they find what's best in themselves. You've changed my life. You've given me the words I need to become whatever I want. I love how you talk to lytlings. You don't talk down to them. You respect them, and anybody can tell you're actually interested in what they have to say. I love the way you ride a horse – how you stick there like an upland thistle, whooping like a Demonai. I love the way you throw back your head and stomp your feet when you dance. I love how you go after what you want – whether it's kisses or a queendom. I love your skin, like copper dusted over with gold. And your eyes – they're the color of a forest lake shaded by evergreens. One of the secret places that only the Demonai know about. I love the scent of you – when you've been out in the fresh air, and that perfume you put behind your ears sometimes. Believe it or not, I even love your road smell – of sweat and horses and leather and wool. I want to breathe you in for the rest of my life.

I need to go to parties, Raisa mused, so I don't think so much.

You didn't have to go to the fireworks with him. Or - or let him fondle you." "Fondle?" Raisa raised her eyebrows, "When did I mention fondling?

Just because you're the enemy of my enemy don't mean you're my friend, Han thought.

Politics is not about justice. It's about the settling of personal vendettas under a thin veneer of civilization. All politics is personal.

As I said, history is written by the victors. The truth is, the villains were less villainous, and the heroes less heroic, than you’ve been told.

She padded toward Han, barefoot, like a faerie startled out of a forest bower, bewitching mix of clan and flatland beauty.

Just a rat, she repeated to herself. After all, there were rats in the palace. Human and otherwise. Could be worse.

Both Averill and Bayar were like actors speaking lines for their audience and not to each other.

Everything's possible when you're seven years old." She sighed. "But then you hit an age where you decide it's cooler not to believe in anything at all. [...] It's called being grown-up.

There's too much to learn in a lifetime.

Grief was like that. It gradually faded into a dull ache, until some simple sight or sound or scent hit him like a hammer blow.

The next chamber is full of songbirds, if I remember right. Their music is like turtleweed. It will put you to sleep if you listen to it. They sleep most of the time, so the best thing is to pass through without waking them up. If they do awaken, then you must sing loud enough to drown out their music." "Great," Han said. "Whose idea was that?" "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Crow said. "I was an excellent singer.

Maybe the hardest lesson Han had learned was that nobody is purely bad or good. Everybody seemed to be a mixture of both.

For Hanalea the Warrior!

It was a peculiar marriage of interests- Lord Averill and Captain Byrne and Lord Bayar and Han Alister agreeing on anything was as rare as gold in Ragmarket.

She's tough for a blueblood, he'd thought, a lifetime ago. Maybe tough enough to be with him. He hadn't considered that he might not be tough enough to be with her.

It's not about what people think. It's about who you are.

Han spotted a child‟s homespun dolly in the ditch, pressed into the mud. He reined in, meaning to climb down and fetch it so he could clean it up for his little sister. Then he remembered that Mari was dead and had no need of dollies anymore. Grief was like that. It gradually faded into a dull ache, until some simple sight or sound or scent hit him like a hammer blow.

Complicated. And yet—simple. They were like two pieces of a failed star, drawn together by a shared history and a memory of illicit kisses.

Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.

Either he's lying, which is bad. Or he could be telling the truth, which is worse

Death. The only thing inevitable in life. People don't like to talk about death because it makes them sad. They don't want to imagine how life will go on without them, all the people they love will briefly grieve but continue to breathe. They don't want to imagine how life will go on without them, Their children will still grow Get married Get old.. They don't want to imagine how life will continue to go on without them Their material things will be sold Their medical files stamped "closed" Their name becoming a memory to everyone they know. They don't want to imagine how life will go on without them, so instead of accepting it head on, they avoid the subject all together, hoping and praying it will somehow... pass them by. Forget about them, moving on to the next one in line. no, they didn't want to imagine how life would continue to go on.... without them. But death didn't forget. Instead they were met head-on by death, disguised as an 18-wheeler behind a cloud of fog. No. Death didn't forget about them. If only they had been prepared, accepted the inevitable, laid out their plans, understood that it wasn't just their lives at hand. I may have legally been considered an adult at the age of nineteen, but still i felt very much all of just nineteen. Unprepared and overwhelmed to suddenly have the entire life of a seven-year-old in my realm. Death. The only thing inevitable in life. -Will

Uncle," she said. "Let me explain what will happen the instant one of your men makes a move toward me. Let's say, for instance, one of your archers lets an arrow fly. You've not come to many of my practices, Uncle. You haven't seen me dodge arrows; but your archers have. If one or your archers releases an arrow, I'll drop to the floor. The arrow will doubtless hit one of your guards. The sword and the dagger of that guard will be in my hands before anyone in the room has time to realize what's happened. A fight will break out with the guards; but only seven or eight of them can surround me at once, Uncle, and seven or eight is nothing to me. As I kill the guards I'll take their daggers and begin throwing them into the hearts of your archers, who of course will have no sighting on me once the brawl with the guards has broken out. I'll get out of the room alive, Uncle, but most of the rest of you will be dead. Of course, this is only what will happen if I wait for one of your men to make a move. I could move first. I could attack a guard, steal his dagger, and hurl it into your chest this instant.

He keeps this up, he's bound to be caught, she thought. And this time they'll dangle him for certain.

Han made no effort to put up a brave front. Most of the time he just screamed himself hoarse, though a couple of times he amused himself by screaming Fionas's name as if he were in the throes of passion. FEEE-OHHH-NAAA! Lord Bayar made him pay for that, but afterward, Fiona didn't come down anymore, which Han appreciated.

But adulthood slipped up on you, she thought. It was forced on you whether you liked it or not.

If he even survives." She shivered, and Amon put his arm around her, drawing her into his steady warmth. "It's that bad?" Raisa nodded. "He looked...he looked awful, Amon. Willo doesn't know if he'll...She's worried about him. My mother died, and I never got to tell her that I loved her, that I finally understood - just a little anyway. If Han dies too, I don't know what I'll do.

The bluejacket girlie rode like a clan warrior, but there was no way she'd escape. It was a private life-and-death contest that had nothing to do with him. He told himself he should ride on, grateful that the chase would keep them occupied while he took a different path. But what had he told Rebecca when she'd asked what he meant to do when he returned to the Fells? 'I'm tired of people in power picking on the weak. I'm going to help them.

I go to school here, same as you,' Han said. Micah blinked at him stupidly, the drink slowing him down. 'You? Do you even know how to read and write? They can't have lowered the standards that much.' 'Well,' Han said, 'they let you in.

You don't get what you don't go after.

If I could destroy the world, don't you think I could fight off the queen of the Fells?" Crow snorted.

As for my family, my father was Danel; he died as a mercenary in the southern wars," Han went on. "My mother's name was Sarah, called Sali, and my sister was Mari. They died last summer. But then, you already knew that. Every time you forget, I'll remind you. That's the blood sacrifice I made to be here, and that's enough.

What could she tell him? I notice everything about him, from his flawed nose to his battle scars to his eyes as blue as an upland lake at midsummer. Sometimes I see the boy he would have been had it not been for his life at Ragmarket. He wears his pain on his face in unguarded moments; at other times, I can see just how dangerous he is. No, she couldn't say any of that.

Raisa felt relieved, yet oddly disappointed. She was the blooded princess heir, yet in servants' clothes she was apparently unrecognizable. In the stories, rulers had a natural presence about them that identified them as such, even dressed in rags. What's the nature of royalty, she wondered. Is it like a gown you put on that disappears when you take it off? Does anyone look beyond the finery? Could anyone in the queendom take her place, given the right accessories? If so, it was contrary to everything she'd ever been taught about bloodlines.

Yes," Bitterblue said. "I suppose you could convert everything into minutes. Twelve times sixty is seven hundred twenty, and fifteen times fifty is seven hundred fifty. So our seven-hundred-twenty-minute half day equals its seven-hundred-fifty-minute half day. Let's see...Right now, the watch reads a time of nearly twenty-five past two. That's one hundred twenty-five total minutes, which, divided by seven hundred fifty, should equal our time in minutes divided by seven hundred twenty...so, seven hundred twenty times one hundred twenty-five is...give me a moment...ninety thousand...divided by seven hundred fifty...is one hundred twenty...which means...well! The numbers are quite neat, aren't they? It's just about two o'clock. I should go home.

Surround yourselves with trustworthy people. If you don't, all the weaponry and tactics in the world can't save you.

You are my father,” she said to Averill. “And you are my grandmother,” she said to Elena. “And you are duty-bound to me,” she said to Nightwalker. “If you take action against Hunts Alone without my permission, we will be at war.

Don't ask for the truth, boy, unless you're ready to hear it.

Cat scowled at him. "Why would I say anything about you? You think the whole world's sniffing your butt?

Crow shrugged. "What is death? The loss of a body? The loss of the animating spark? If that's the case, I am dead. "Or is life the persistence of memory and emotion, volition and desire?" Crow went on, as if in a debate with himself. "If that's the case, I am very much alive.

The very essence of the opiate high was expressed by a twenty-seven-year-old sex-trade worker. She had HIV and has since died. “The first time I did heroin,” she said to me, “it felt like a warm, soft hug.” In that phrase she told her life story and summed up the psychological and chemical cravings of all substance-dependent addicts.

Han stroked her hair, shifting his body under her. “Why? What are you afraid of? Thieves or wizards?” “Both,” she said. “Is it because I‟m not a blueblood?” He asked this matter-of-factly, as if he really wanted to know. “That‟s the least of it,” Raisa said, taking a shuddering breath. “This is just going to lead to heartbreak, and I refuse to have my heart broken again.” She looked up at him. “I thought I could play at love. I thought I had the right, same as — as any courtier or a — a streetlord.” He shook his head. “Rebecca, listen, I—” “But I‟ve found out I‟m not made that way,” she interrupted. “I can‟t play this game if my heart‟s not in it. That‟s me personally. I‟m not judging anyone else.” “I see,” he said. He tightened his arms around her, brushing his fingers along her collarbone, setting her nerves tingling. “What‟s your heart saying now?” She wanted to be honest with him, even though she‟d probably pay for it. “I‟m in trouble,” she whispered.

You need the strength to do what's right, even when what you want most in the world is the wrong thing.

It's true what they say, then-history is written by the victors.

His name was Theo.

I do try to get my own way, but I think it's because I'll never get my way on anything that matters

If someone grabs you in the street, hit hard and fast, because you may not get a second chance.

You do not respond to an attempt on your life with a slap on the hand. Or a joke.

If she'd ever hoped to impress Amon Byrne with her newly acquired glamour and beauty, that chance was gone forever. He'd seen her in every kind of ugly.

None of us are free to follow our hearts,"she said. "Not really. Is that what you're saying?" He shook his head. "No one can stop you from loving someone," he said.

He radiated a calm focus--like he knew who he was and where he was going. He was a steady mooring in a sea of change. Hr was honest and kept his word, and he was unrelentingly fair. It made people want to follow him.

She could hear the rattle of hooves on stone evolve into a thunder of pursuit.

Subhuti, someone might fill innumerable worlds with the seven treasures and give all away in gifts of alms, but if any good man or any good woman awakens the thought of Enlightenment and takes even only four lines from this Discourse, reciting, using, receiving, retaining and spreading them abroad and explaining them for the benefit of others, it will be far more meritorious. Now in what manner may he explain them to others? By detachment from appearances-abiding in Real Truth. -So I tell you- Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream; A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. When Buddha finished this Discourse the venerable Subhuti, together with the bhikshus, bhikshunis, lay-brothers and sisters, and the whole realms of Gods, Men and Titans, were filled with joy by His teaching, and, taking it sincerely to heart they went their ways.

A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, séances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles. What bewitched Bernard Kornblum, on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated π. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business—sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel. Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect.

Is it really your intention to be a soldier, Morley?" Askell asked. "Wouldn't it make more sense for you to study the softer sciences? Healing, art, and philosophy are all important topics. That's a more typical course of study for those of your station." "My station or my gender, sir?" Rasia said. "You've said Wien House is full of thanelings and dukes. I can think of only one way in which they are different from me.

Bitterblue took this information straight to the library. "Death?" she said. "Do we have birth records for the seven kingdoms for the year Leck would have been born? Will you review them for someone with a name that sounds like Eemkerr?" "A name that sounds like Eemkerr," Death repeated, peering up at her from his new desk, which was covered with smelly, scorched papers. "Lady Fire says that Leck told her that before his name was Leck, it was Eemkerr." "Which is a name she remembers from almost fifty years ago," Death said sarcastically, "spoken to her, not spelled, presumably not a name from her own language, and conveyed to you mentally fifty years later. And I'm to recall every instance of a name of that nature in all the birth records available to me from the relevant year for all seven kingdoms, on the extremely slim chance that we have the name right and a record exists?" "I know you're just as happy as I am," said Bitterblue. Death's mouth twitched. Then he said, "Give me some time to remember, Lady Queen.

…but to the unicorn’s eyes Molly was becoming a softer country, full of pools and caves, where old flowers came burning out of the ground. Under the dirt and indifference, she appeared only thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old - no older than Schmendrick, surely, despite the magician’s birthdayless face. Her rough hair bloomed, her skin quickened, and her voice was nearly as gentle to all things as it was when she spoke to the unicorn. The eyes would never be joyous, any more than they could ever turn green or blue, but they too had wakened in the earth. She walked eagerly into King Haggard’s realm on bare, blistered feet, and she sang often. And far away on the other side of the unicorn, Schmendrick the Magician stalked in silence. His black cloak was sprouting holes, coming undone, and so was he. The rain that renewed Molly did not fall on him, and he seemed ever more parched and deserted, like the land itself. The unicorn could not heal him. A touch of her horn could have brought him back from death, but over despair she had no power, nor over magic that had come and gone.

By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea once a year in a golden palanquin to pray to the god of Oukranos, who sang to him in youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is that temple, and covering an acre of ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels and the god sings softly in the night. Many times the moon hears strange music as it shines on those courts and terraces and pinnacles, but whether that music be the song of the god or the chant of the cryptical priests, none but the King of Ilek-Vad may say; for only he had entered the temple or seen the priests. Now, in the drowsiness of day, that carven and delicate fane was silent, and Carter heard only the murmur of the great stream and the hum of the birds and bees as he walked onward under the enchanted sun.