Jacqueline Carey quotes:

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  • It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.

  • Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade

  • Clearly, I'm drawn to characters with inner conflicts.

  • Wars come and go; politics endure.

  • Clearly, Im drawn to characters with inner conflicts.

  • 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.

  • Having a literary agent makes a huge difference in submitting work. My agent has access and tremendous passion.

  • We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

  • 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?

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

  • I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.

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

  • Truly, it is in loss that we learn a thing's true value.

  • Battle for the sake of honor may be a fine thing for bards to sing of, but it is no way to preserve one's homeland

  • 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.

  • 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.

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

  • A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

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

  • Some chains are forged for us - those are the hardest to bear.

  • For every victory there is a price.

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

  • Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake.

  • Are you a minor character in my tale, or am I a lesser figure in yours?

  • If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.

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

  • Avevo Joscelin, il mio Compagno Perfetto, la bussola su cui era fisso il mio cuore.

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

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

  • When I started really writing fantasy, one of the things I noticed was a real absence of sexuality in the genre at all. And it's such a profound part of the human experience that it's a really big thing to leave out.

  • ...not stories, but histories. For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always.

  • A small kindness, a confluence of compassion, had saved his life. Was that strength, or a weakness?

  • 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.

  • Love as thou wilt

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

  • People believe what they are told.

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

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

  • The harp sounds at each passing breeze, but that does not mean the tune is masterfully played.

  • One must gauge one's trust carefully.

  • 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.

  • A small kindness, a confluence of compassion, had saved his life. Was that strength, or a weakness~?

  • There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation on a theme. So musicians say the greatest sonatas are composed; whether or not it is true, I do not know, but of a surety I have seen it emerge in the tapestry of my life.

  • After you, it's all cheap tequila.

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

  • I have always loved fantasy; I think probably stepping through the wardrobe with Lucy in C.S. Lewis's 'Narnia Chronicles' was my first exposure when I was really little.

  • I don't really consider my work, on the whole, 'fringe' in my own mind; science fiction and fantasy have been pretty solidly in the mainstream for a while.

  • All knowledge is worth having

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

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

  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • 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.

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

  • Those that yield are not always weak

  • Soon never comes soon enough to a young child.

  • 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.

  • That which yields is not always weak.

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

  • The tapestry of history is woven of many threads.

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

  • Whip us 'till we're on the floor, we'll turn around and ask for more, we're Phèdre's Boys! We like to hurt, we like to bleed, daily floggings do we need, we're Phèdre's Boys! Man or woman, we don't care, give us twins we'll take the pair! We're Phèdre's Boys! ...But just because we let you beat us, doesn't mean you can defeat us, we're Phèdre's Boys!

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

  • Genius requires an audience.

  • It is a comfort, in anguish, to be reminded of the scale of one's own troubles against the mighty breadth of the world.

  • There is no folly like the folly of the wise.

  • There are those who hold that there is a pattern to all that is said and done in this world, that no thing happens without reason nor out of time. As to that, I cannot speak, for I have seen too many threads cut short to believe it, but of a surety, I have seen too the weft of my fate shuttled on the loom. If there is a pattern, I do not think there is anyone among us who can stand at a great enough distance to discern it; yet I will not say that it is not so.

  • Fear and lies fester in darkness. The truth may wound, but it cuts clean.

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

  • And Kushiel sends no punishment that we are not fit to bear.

  • 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.

  • Night breeds its own sort of anticipation.

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

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

  • 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.

  • This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.

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

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

  • Garner knowledge, by any means possible

  • Nothing spoils idle pleasure like too much awareness

  • For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always. These events, so distant in legend, play a part in shaping the very events we witness about us, each and every day.

  • Happiness is the highest form of wisdom.

  • I would that I could have stopped time and preserved that day forever. It was a perfect day. There was the shadow of sorrow, yes. It would always be there. But that was the nature of life. The bright mirror and the dark, reflecting one another. And today there was so much brightness.

  • It is not wise to meddle with D'Angelines in matters of love.

  • My lord. It is too much, and not enough

  • Spontaneity is the province of youth

  • Stupid to speak of blame when the wills of the immortals are involved.

  • And for a price, I will pretend absolutely nothing.

  • Stand at the crossroads if you will, but if you'll not choose, I'll move on without you

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

  • 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.

  • To recongnize that the treachery of one member of a house does not taint all born within it

  • 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.

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

  • A nervous silence loosens tongues

  • It is not everyday that one learns an entire militia has sworn unbeknownest to obey you

  • Even a stunted tree reaches for sunlight.

  • I wish sometimes that the gods would either choose better, or make their wishes clearer

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

  • That was the problem ... with trusting to the written word ... We were human, mortal and fallible. We forgot, we made errors, argued ambiguities, and twisted meanings to suit our own ends. And in doing so, mayhap we reshaped the gods themselves.

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

  • Pain redeems all. It is the awareness of life, a reminder of death.

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

  • 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.

  • What is fear but courage's shadow?

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