Elizabeth Moon · 1040 pages
Rating: (10.8K votes)
“Even if a tamed wolf makes a good sheepdog, he will never understand how the sheep feel....You are most fortunate. For having been, as you thought, a coward, and helpless to fight - you know what that is like. You know what bitterness that feeling breeds - you know in your own heart what kind of evil it brings. And so you are most fit to fight it where it occurs.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“We do not argue that war is better than peace; we are not so stupid as that. But it is not peace when cruelty reigns, when stronger men steal from farmers and craftworkers, when the child can be enslaved or the old thrown out to starve, and no one lifts a hand. That is not peace: that is conquest, and evil.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“it is much the same, I daresay, wherever and whenever men desire power and the use of power on others.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“Paks, if you've got a fault it's that you're too willing to be ruled. I know what you'll say—you'll say that's how a good soldier is.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“Of death I am as certain as any mortal, Ammerlin, but defeat is certain only in despair.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish—power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision—however partial it had been in those days—was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life—as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors—the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or the way the Kuakgan talked of the grove's interlacing trees. There below were the dream's roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream's images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“You have fought a hard battle, in hard conditions, and held a position until help came. Think of it like that.”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“Yet powerful as they were, as powerful as music that brings heart-piercing pain, tears, laughter, with its enchantments, they were as music, subordinate to their own creator. Humans need not, Paks saw, worship their immortality, their cool wisdom, their knowledge of the taig, their ability to repattern mortal perceptions. In brief mortal lives humans met challenges no elf could meet, learned strategies no elf could master, chose evil or good more direct and dangerous than elf could perceive. Humans were shaped for conflict, as elves for harmony; each needed the other's balance of wisdom, but must cleave to its own nature. It was easy for an immortal to counsel patience, withdrawal until a danger passed . . .”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“When—notice that I do not say if, being granted almost as much stubbornness as you, by Gird's grace—when you find that you can swear your honor to Gird's fellowship, it will be my pleasure to give and receive your strokes. Is that satisfactory, or have you more conditions for a Marshal-General of Gird, and Captain-Temporal of the High Lord?" Paks”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“You'll find, someday," Paks found herself saying, "that your own tongue cuts you worse than any blade. I”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“The quietness spread, from gray eyes that held no hatred for those who spat at her face or tasted her blood, from a voice that could scream in pain yet mouth no curses after, that spoke, between screams, in a steady confirmation of all good. Those”
― Elizabeth Moon, quote from The Deed of Paksenarrion
“It has been an assault on her senses: smells that suddenly overpower her, and heat she can taste, thick as dust on her tongue. Not only does she feel powerless in the face of Indian bureaucracy, but as further punishment, the torrential downpours also keep them trapped inside Krishnan’s parents’ flat.”
― Shilpi Somaya Gowda, quote from Secret Daughter
“Sahara dug her fingers into his arms. “You do not do this,” she said, and it was an order. “You do not let that monster destroy the life we are going to have together. You are mine, not his. You have always been mine.” The claiming was so absolute, it dared him to fight. Kaleb had no intention of doing so. Shuddering, he crushed her to him. “Yes,” he said, battling the rage because if he gave in to it, he would lose Sahara. “I’m yours. I will always be yours.” Her lips on his jaw, on his cheek, her love fierce. “Remember that. Each action, every action you take, it has my name on it.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Heart of Obsidian
“The Yaksha asked, 'What is the soul of man? Who is that friend bestowed on man by the gods? What is man's chief support? And what also is his chief refuge?' Yudhishthira answered, 'The son is a man's soul: the wife is the friend bestowed on man by the gods; the clouds are his chief support; and gift is his chief refuge.”
― C. Rajagopalachari, quote from Mahabharata
“Men who have embraced one idea can live only by and for that idea. Beyond it, they have nothing but their memories.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Lady Placida smiled. “History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title.”
“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”
Lady Placida laughed. “True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change.” She offered her hands. “It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Academ's Fury
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