The Blue Sword

[Harry] had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child.

...My friend, there are some things that I cannot tell you. Some I will tell you in time; some, others will tell you; some you may never know, or you may be the first to find the answers.

You are attempting to be logical, I suspect, and logic has little to do with government, and nothing at all to do with military administration.

One doesn't generally look into mirrors when one is especially angry; one has better things to do, like pace the floor or throw things.

There had been certain romantic interludes in the past that had included galloping across the desert at night; but he had never abducted any woman whose enthusiastic support for such a plan had not been secured well in advance.

What was she to say? "The prodigal has returned? The mutineer wishes to be reinstated? The subordinate, having gone to a great deal of trouble to prove her commander wrong, has come back and promises to be a good little subordinate hereafter, or at least until next time?

It seems to me further, that it is very odd that fate should leave so careful a trail, and spend so little time preparing the one that must follow it.

...like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?

Friends you will have need of, for in you two worlds meet. There is no one on both sides with you, so you must learn to take your own counsel; and not to fear what is strange, if you know it also to be true. —Luthe

Mathin said: "It is best to take your opponent's sash. The kysin mark each blow dealt, but to cut off the other rider's sash is best. This you will do." "Oh," said Harry. "You may, if you wish, unhorse him first," Mathin added as an afterthought. "Thanks," said Harry.

Tsornin's nostrils showed red, but his ears were as alert as ever, and occasionally he would rub his nose gently against the nape of her neck, just in case she was momentarily not thinking about him.

He looked at her rather as a man looks at a problem that he would very much prefer to do without. She supposed it was a distinction of a sort to be a harassment to a king.

He didn't look insane or inhuman. He did look uncooperative.

Sungold blew impatiently and began to dig a hole with one foot. She booted his elbow with her toe and he stopped, but after a moment he lowered his head and blew again, harder, and she could feel him shifting his weight, considering if she might let him dig just a small hole.

Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not.

He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Notherners for nine days and melt a hole in the hills.

[Gonturan] is a true friend, but a friend with thoughts of her own, and the thoughts of others are dangerous.

Your attitude is perhaps a little unnecessarily rigorous," suggested Jack.

She had had insomnia badly when she was fresh from Home.... She had had only occasional bad nights since then. Bad? she thought. Why bad? I rarely feel much the worse the next day, except for a sort of moral irritability that seems to go with the feeling that I ought to have spent all those silent hours asleep.

Mathin had taught her patience, and she had known all of her life how to be stubborn.

My father... raised me to make up my own mind. The way he did this was by yielding to me when I asked, even when I was foolish. I lived through it; and I know my own mind; and he will do what I ask him.

There was, too, a reality to her new life that her old life had lacked, and she realized with a shock that she had never truly loved or hated, for she had never seen the world she had been used to living in closely enough for it to evoke passion in her.

There was a certain bitter humor to lying awake wishing for something one cannot have, after lying awake not so long ago wishing for the opposite thing that one had just lost. Not a very useful sort of adaptability, this, she thought.

It is not a comfortable passion.

--including Rilly, who was beside herself with excitement, and her mother, who was beside herself with Rilly--

But their strength is the strength of numbers and of stubbornness and persistence; do not underestimate it.

But he hated to see his people people unhappy--because he was a good king, not because he was a nervous one--

In fact, she would have added the rider that she wasn't sure it could be done at all, getting to know someone at any succession of such parties, however prolonged.

No, but I am working up to telling you that there is no possibility of there being done what ought to be done-

But it is not, as we say when we are being diplomatic, a fruitful source of inquiry.