“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.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“I'm sick of this. Call me what you like, say I'm without honor, I don't care. I'm not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“And if wishes were pies, I`d weigh more than I do.
Sir Myles of Barony Olau ”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“WE do try to eat," Raoul called back to her [Kel]. I go all faint if I don't get fed regularly. Only think of the disgrace to the King's Own if I fell from the saddle."
"But there was that time in Fanwood," a voice behind them said.
"That wedding in Tameran," added the blonde Sergeant Osbern, riding a horse-length behind Kel.
"Don't forget when what's-his-name, with the army, retired," yelled a third.
"Silence, insubordinate curs!" cried Raoul. "Do not sully my new squire's ears with your profane tales!"
"Even if they're TRUE?" That was Dom. It seemed Neal wasn't the only family member versed in irony.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“There is a saying in the Islands. Beware the women of the warrior class, for all they touch is both decorative and deadly.-Yuki”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“Not too fast," called Raoul. "Let's not scare anyone."
"His majesty said with all deliberate speed!" chirped the courier. He flinched under Lerant's glare.
"That's how we're doing it," Raoul told him. "Deliberately.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“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, and you'll find them in charge of companies in the army, under the eye of a general. Without people who can take orders, we'd be in real trouble.
'Commanders.' He raised his little finger. 'Good ones, people with a knack for it, like, say, the queen, or Buri, or young Dom, they're as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. Commanders size up people's strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone will shine and where they will collapse. Other warriors will obey a true commander because they can tell that the commander knows what he- or she- is doing.' Raoul picked up a quill and toyed with it. 'You've shown flashes of being a commander. I've seen it. So has Qasim, your friend Neal, even Wyldon, though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still-untamed pockets, too curse many hideyholes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the Crown will use you. We're too desperate for good commanders to let one slip away, even a female one. Now, finish that'- he pointed to the slate- 'and you can stop for tonight.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“I've said it before and I'll say it again, my lord. You are an evil man.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“My new knight mistress is famed for wielding sharp edges: Sword, Knife and Tongue!”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“Haven’t you ever noticed that people who win say it’s because the gods know they are in the right, but if they lose, it wasn’t the gods who declared them wrong? Their opponent cheated, or their equipment was bad.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“He was overconfident”, she told him. “And I won so the gods must have thought I was right. Otherwise they’d have made me lose. You know how trial by combat works.”
“You won because you were good” he corrected her. “I find it hard to believe the gods sit forever about the Divine Realms betting on jousts and trials by combat.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“Oakbridge did his work with dramatics and prophecies that all would go horribly awry. Having dealt with him over midwinter, Kel wondered why the man hadn’t died of a heart attack. Instead he seemed to thrive on disaster and finding people seated in the wrong places.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“I’m to attend balls and banquets without my squire?" demanded Raoul, all innocence. "I can't handle things like requesting water to shave with, or getting my clothes pressed. I need Kel.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“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.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“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.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“When in doubt," the mage Numair Salmalin had taught the pages, "Shoot the wizard.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“Do we say, Oh now I'm going to be nice to the weak and the small? Or do we do as we learned when we were pages?”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“When people say a knight's job is all glory, I laugh, and laugh, and laugh.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“She wanted an extra advantage today, more than she'd had in training with Raoul or knights like Jerel. When the trumpet blared, she told Peachblossom, "Charge."
Muscles bunched under her. The gelding flew at his top speed down the dirt lane, hooves thundering in packed dust. For those brief seconds Kel felt like an army of one. She loved no one so much as her horse.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“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.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“She decided to be quiet for now. There was a Yamani saying: “You need never unsay anything that you did not say in the first place.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“You don't think history gets rewritten, sometimes?”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
“Buri rode along with her own Group Askew and two more Rider Groups, the Sixth, called Thayet’s Dogs, and the Fifteenth, Stickers.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Squire
Tamora Pierce
Born place: in South Connellsville, Pennsylvania, The United States
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“Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly.
For courage she hung right beside the other cocoon and began to spin her own.
'Imagine, I didn't even know I could do this. That's some encouragement that i'mon the right track. If I have the stuff inside me to make cocoons—maybe the stuff of butterflies is there too.”
― Trina Paulus, quote from Hope for the Flowers
“the most blood thirsty animals in the Artic are not wolves, but the insatiable mosquitoes.”
― Farley Mowat, quote from Never Cry Wolf
“I've a sense for these things. Tonight you're aching for a man."
At that, she glanced away. "You might be right, Scot," she said casually, then faced him once more. Her voice a purr, she said, "But are you the man I await...where I ache?”
― Kresley Cole, quote from If You Deceive
“Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, the earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas.
She had to admit, the signs were not promising.”
― Peter Lerangis, quote from The Viper's Nest
“Nor was her love for Udayan recognizable or intact. Anger was always mounted to it, zigzagging through her like some helplessly mating pair of insects. Anger at him for dying when he might have lived. For bringing her happiness, and then taking it away. For trusting her, only to betray her. For believing in sacrifice, only to be so selfish in the end.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, quote from The Lowland
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