Half the World

Take everything as a compliment, you can never be insulted.

Those with bad luck should at least attempt to balance it with good sense.

Fools boast of what they will do. Heroes do it.

There's no disappointment like getting what you've always wanted...

I always thought of being together as the end of the work. Turns out it's where the work starts.

The trouble with being able to lift heavy things is that when heavy things need lifting folk step out of the way and smile at you.

Where do we find allies?" Father Yarvi smiled. "Among our enemies, where else?

You want a thing when you can't have it. When you get it you suddenly sprout doubts. Then when you think you might lose it you find you need it worse than ever.

...the more you learn the more you understand the size of your own ignorance.

Pain is the best schoolmaster, as you will soon discover.

Why the mad hair, girl?" "Because damn you," growled Thorn, "that's why.

If you could kill a man by frowning at his back, the Breaker of Swords would have fallen bloody through the Last Door that day, but a frown is no blade, and Thorn's hatred cut no one but her.

Facing an enemy on the battlefield took courage, but you had your friends beside you. Standing alone against your friends, that was a different kind of courage.

Grom-gil-Gorm," she said softly as she rode between Laithlin and Yarvi. "Breaker of Swords." Mother Isriun's horse shied back out of her way. "Maker of Orphans." Thorn reined in beside him, his frowning face lit red by the blazing light of her elf-bangle, and she leaned from her saddle to whisper. "Your death comes.

There aren’t many good things don’t have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.

You keep an oath not for the oath but for yourself

You are lucky, Thorn. You are very lucky." "Doubtless. Not every girl gets to be stabbed through the face." "And by a duke of royal blood too!

There is a time for wondering what a man wants,” said Fror, no fear at all in his. “And there is a time for splitting his head. This is that second time.

It was either bluster or look weak and Thorn reckoned that no choice at all, so she puffed herself up and snapped out, "How did you get the scar?" "How did you get the scar?" Thorn frowned. "What scar?" "That's the face the gods gave you?" And with the faintest of smiles the Vansterman went back to coiling rope.

Killing a man by accident had made her a villain. Killing another on purpose had made her a hero. But all she could do was frown at the body as they dragged it out, and feel there was something very odd in all this.

A man who gives all his thought to doing good, but no thought to the consequences …” Father Yarvi lifted his withered hand and pressed its one crooked finger into Brand’s chest. “That is a dangerous man.

Time hasn't been kind." "Time never is. A fighter keeps fighting even so. Thought you were a fighter?

The gods hate those who plan badly, and help those with good friends, good swords, and good sense.

Enemies are the price of success.

The gods hate those who plan badly, and help those with good friends, good swords, and good sense. Worry less about what the gods might do and more about what you can, that’s my advice.

You keep an oath not for the oath but for yourself.

Vengeance only walks a circle. From blood, back to blood. Death waits for us all. You can follow your path to her bent under a burden of rage. I did, for many years. You can let it poison you.” He took a long breath, and let it sigh away. “Or you can let it go.