Quotes from book

The Dragon Queen

“Love is important, and woman being shrewd bargainers probably know fame is not worth much. I’d much rather have something I can spend, eat, or love, thank you very much”

“the little death. What would or could be left of a human being after such an experience?”

“Remember this central truth. Your enemy is there because he, too, has weighed the consequences of failure and accepts them. Play always to win, because nothing else matters”

“You, why do you let me say such things when and where I shouldn’t?” “the problem is not ordering the course of your speech. Its shutting you up in the first place””

“He said truth has a taste, and this had the taste of truth. A wolf would put it that way, but I agree it does. Some things just don’t hang together, but others do. And a lot of times when you encounter it, you say, “I don’t want this to be right, but it probably is, even though it brings me to grief.””

“One day she would be a formidable female, a creature to be reckoned with”

“It is human, I think, when we encounter the marvelous to try and bring away some of it with us”

“I saw he was now and always would be his own man”

“some men know from birth that they are expendable… they fought to won. If you did not win, you did not run either”

“God, to breathe. Air. You don’t know what it means until you cannot take a breath”

“I apologize.” “you aren’t sorry and don’t apologize.””

“[he] was handsome. Just the sight of him stirred strange longings in me”

“Desire was only another weapon, like hunger, loneliness, and cold arrayed against him by his tormentors”

“for when women take revenge, it is with all their hearts and souls, not to mention considerable inventiveness and ingenuity”

“Good practical intelligence. Why screech when there is no one to comfort you?”

“You are very lovely now and soon you will be beautiful. Ant not in an ordinary way. Youth is always beautiful, but you are like some creatures of fairy born to bring ill to mortals. Only trouble can follow such gifts”

“He is tremendously strong, she thought, and liked the idea, even as she had feared that strength when she first met him”

“He was magnificent, and I will never forget that in that moment, I first loved him. And I never stopped loving him. I do now and always will. No one ever brought me more sorrow or pain or joy than he did. No, nothing, not even my sons, has ever outweighed the love I feel and still feel for him. And I believe – had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives – I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then”

“She was afraid of men, with good reason, but she need not fear all of them. Cai loved her and somehow always would. But above all, she could trust him, because dishonesty wasn’t in him. Not always a good trait but a part of his nature. He kept faith without thinking about it at all. He couldn’t imagine not doing so”