Quotes from Squire

“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

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“What’sa matter? You afraid I’ll get too friendly if I find out you’ve been pleasurin’ Comanches?”
Struggling to stay calm, she said, “You’re a smart man. I heard you and your men talking. You were hired to rescue captives, not abuse them. Touch one of us, and it’ll be the mistake of your life. We haven’t been pleasuring anyone. And if we end up pleasuring you, I guarantee you’ll hang for it.”
He didn’t bluff easily. Running his fingers under the string of rawhide that encircled her neck, he lifted Hunter’s medallion from under her blouse and studied the carved stone. “Appears to me like you hooked up with a chief, honey.” He smiled and returned the medallion to its former resting place, trailing his fingers under her blouse, his eyes holding hers. Her skin crawled where his grimy knuckles touched. “A Comanche don’t wear a wolf sign unless he’s somebody important. The wolf is sacred to ’em, their brother. No woman would have a medallion like that unless her man marked her with it.”
“No filthy Injun has put his hands on me,” Loretta retorted. The words ached in her throat, making her feel disloyal to Hunter. What if he was out there, hiding, listening? “One of the warriors put the medallion on me before he left on a hunting trip. Since it seemed to prevent the others from touching me or my little cousin, I continued to wear it.”
He grinned and rocked back on his heels. “Where you from?”
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“Fort Belknap anyplace close?”
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“I reckon so. Unless somethin’ happens to you along the trail. That’d be a shame, wouldn’t it? But then, dead women, they don’t tell stories.”
“Neither do they bring reward money.”
― Catherine Anderson, quote from Comanche Moon

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