Top 96 Quotes & Sayings by Jacqueline Carey

Sidonie, I know you don't remember it, but you once promised to trust me beyond all reason. And I swear to you that all that I am, all that I possess, including this gem-stone, is yours. I need you. I can't do this alone. Forget your memories. Look into your heart. And if you can find somewhere there, some lingering spark of trust that owes naught to reason, I beg you to speak the word written here.

There's more to clothing than just adornment. It does more than merely change how the world perceives us. It changes how we perceive ourselves.

I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love. It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss. Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

Those that yield are not always weak

We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.

Joscelin, is love supposed to make you feel like you’re sick and dying, and mad enough to hit someone and drunk with joy, and your heart’s a boulder n your chest trying to burst into a thousand pieces all at once?” “Mm-hmm.” He finished his ale. “That would be love.

Love child!" What else? You will find it and lose it, again and again. And with each finding and each loss, you will become more than before. What you make of it is yours to choose.

What's the point of being a grown-up if you can't indulge the kid inside you every now and then?

Even a stunted tree reaches for sunlight.

Well, I was living it, but a shared dream half-lived is a hollow thing

Soon never comes soon enough to a young child.

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

If I had to fall from Cassiel's grace, at least I know it took a courtesan worthy of Kings to do it.

There is as much deception in noise as there is in silence

Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking ears will not hear

For every victory there is a price.

But slight mistakes accumulate, and grow to gross errors if unchecked.

Night breeds its own sort of anticipation.

There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.

True friendship must be akin to romance, I think. only without all the anguish and anxiety.

Nothing spoils idle pleasure like too much awareness

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart

All knowledge is worth having

To have a traitor for an ally is to have an enemy in waiting

There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire

There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong in comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade

Clearly, Im drawn to characters with inner conflicts.

I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand.

And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.

All paths are present, always... and we can but choose among them.

Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently.

My lord. It is too much, and not enough

When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me

Grief heals ... unshed tears fester like a canker in the soul.

It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.

I can see patterns in events, and behaviors; in mathematics, I follow slower

We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.

I had begun to think my ripening body would wither untasted on the vine.

We are meant to taste of life ... and drink the cup of it to the dregs, bitter and sweet alike.

Genius requires an audience.

To my surprise, Joscelin rose. ‘Phedre-’ He began, then halted. Sitting below him, I watched him smile to himself, quiet and private. ‘Phedre yields with a willow’s grace,’ he said softly. ‘And endures with the strength of mountains. Without her, life would be calm; and yet lack all meaning.

There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme

It's the same questions we ask of our existence, and the answer is always the same. The mystery lies not in the question nor the answer, but in the asking and answering themselves, over and over again, and the end is engendered in the beginning.

If you thought better of me, you would not be so surprised

It is a fine line, in all of us, between civilization and savagery. To any who think they would never cross it, I can only say, if you have never known what it is to be utterly betrayed and abandoned, you cannot know how close it is.

After you, it's all cheap tequila.

Yes my lord, but questions are dangerous, for they have answers

Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel.

It's funny how despair can soon become an old companion

Like a falling star, he descended on the Tarbh Cró, a Cassiline berserker, his sword biting and slashing like a silver snake.

All exiles carry a map within them that points the way homeward.

Pain obliterates everything else. In pain, there is only the eternal present.

Garner knowledge, by any means possible

Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?

It is my observations, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others

Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes?

That which yields is not always weak.

We speak of stories ending, when in truth it is we who end. The stories go on and on.