Ship of Destiny

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.

When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. You predict your own failure, and by inaction, lock yourself into it.

Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?

One does not need the size of a dragon to have the soul of a dragon.

Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.

Silent," the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. "Silent as a blinded ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.

Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.

Instead, we must focus on our hopes. If we cannot anchor ourselves in a belief that we will succeed, we have already been defeated.

... finally realizing that life was to be lived, rather than hoarded against an unseen tomorrow.

We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness.

A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your own family and friends.

Something clamped tight inside her suddenly eased. He had been right. She did not have to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal. Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face.

You can't play in shit and not get some on you.

Be content with you own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.' She frowned up at him. 'Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?' 'Perhaps people have a right to their pain,' he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, 'Perhaps they even need it.

There is no such thing as an extraordinary coincidence. There is only destiny.

It doesn't work that way. Silencing memories does not make them stop existing. Events cannot be undone by forgetting them.

Do you begrudge me that I am who I truly am? Should I pretend otherwise for the sake of pleasing you? If I did, it would be a lie. Would you rather love a lie than know me as I truly am?

I can take all my pasts, keep them and determine my own future. I don't have to be what anyone made me, Brashen. I can be Paragon.

Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of imagination,” the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective voice she asked, “Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.

Do not pull back from the pain and imagine that makes you strong. Look at it, you dolt! It is trying to tell you what is wrong so you can fix it.

Once she would have found him mysterious and alluring. She had grown wiser. Dangerous men were neither romantic nor exotic; they were men who could hurt you.

Why not break free now, and make Bingtown a place where folk begin anew, all men standing on an equal footing?" "And all women, too." She must be Sparse's daughter, thought Keffria. Even her voice echoed his in tone. Devouchet looked at her in surprise. "It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke," he said mildly. "A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases.

Come, join your kin and lend strength to the weaker ones. Together, together, we journey, back to our beginnings and our endings. Gather, shore-born creatures of the sea, to return to the shores yet again. Bring your dreams of sky and wings; come to share the memories of our lives. Our time is come, our time is come. - She Who Remembers

Why had Althea's crazed words affected Etta like this? Then the answer came to him: she was pregnant. Women always behaved strangely when they were pregnant.

So. Which of our troubles torments you most this evening?” Althea surrendered. “They all nip at my heels like a pack of yapping feists, ship. I don’t know which to worry about first.” The figurehead gave a snort of disdain. “Then kick them away as if they were truly a pack of curs and fix your gaze instead on your destiny.” … “Don’t think about the obstacles” … The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.” “I think we will succeed only if we prepare ourselves,” Althea objected. Paragon shook his head. “Teach yourself to believe you will succeed. … Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.” Althea sighed. “Now you sound like Amber,” she complained. “No.” He contradicted her flatly. “Now I sound like myself. The self I put aside and hid, the self I intended to be again someday, when I was ready. I have stopped intending. I am, now.” p. 86: Paragon to Althea

She could be shaped by her past without being trapped by it" p. 283

I don't think they're coming. Why must I stand here in the wind and rain?' 'Because it pleases me', Kennit snapped at him. Wintrow thought to intervene. 'You can have my cloak, if you like'. he offered. The Satrap scowled. 'It's dripping wet. What good would that do me?' 'You could be wetter', Kennit snarled.

Don't go mooning after the stars, when the wide sea is all around you. It's a sky of its own, you know.