Juliet Marillier quotes:

Brilliant minds make errors, brave souls falter, kind hearts leave scars. We are none of us perfect, but we're all perfectly human.

It becomes easy, Finbar said. It's in the training; the ability to see your enemy as something other than a real man. He is a lesser breed, defined by his beliefs - you learn to do with him what you will, and bend him to your purpose.

But some things did not change...Courage, for instance. Dedication to a cause. Comradeship. When they were strong and pure, when they came from deep in the bone, those qualities could hold fast against all odds.

I've loved fairytales, folklore and mythology since I was a small child, and I think it was inevitable that they would influence my style and my development of stories.

First person allows deeper insight into the protagonist's character. It allows the reader to identify more fully with the protagonist and to share her world quite intimately. So it suits a story focused on one character's personal journey. However, first person shuts out insights into other characters.

More like some small, fierce bird of prey, something with a sharp bite. An owl perhaps, that speaks only when the rest of the world sleeps. Jenny will do well enough.

Each of my novels features a protagonist undertaking a difficult personal journey. On the way, each of these characters - mostly female - discovers something about herself and at the same time makes an impact on other people's lives.

Goodbye Curly. I'll see you next summer. Keep out of trouble, now, until I come back.

My advice to aspiring writers of fantasy trilogies or series is that each book needs two main plots. There's the 'big story', the over-arching grand plot of the entire series, and there is the complete-in-itself, one-book plot.

Come, dear heart. Lean on me and let us walk this path together.

All that he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness.

With courage and hope, we can conquer our fears and do what we once believed impossible.

As a novelist, I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior and interactions.

There are technical tricks that may help you create more effective characters. My approach to characterization is not at all technical. I can't really analyze how I do it, but I am sure of one thing. To write convincing characters, you must possess the ability to think yourself into someone else's skin.

So you do believe in... true love? she whispered.I took a deep breath, I think I have to, I said, blinking back tears. Without it, we're all going nowhere.

Trust is a thing you know without words.

Ask us for any help you need...Let us be strong for you.

And as I watched him, I knew that in every dark night there was, somewhere, a small light burning that could never be quenched.

How could you not know?" His voice was full of wonderment. "You changed me utterly. You were like a...like a bright, wonderful bloom in a garden full of weeds. Like a graceful capital on a page of plain script, a letter decorated with the deepest, finest colors in all Erin. Like a flame, Caitrin. Like a song.

After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

There was so much of beauty here: the neat, small tracks of a foraging creature, stoat or marten; the inticate tracery of a skeleton leaf, still clinging vainly to its parent tree as, little by little, time stripped it of its substance, leaving only the delicate remembrance of what it had been.

As for me, I had found love, and that was a gift worth suffering for.

She had sacrificed her childhood to save her brothers; she loved her family above all else, and her spirits yearned to return home once more, to the wild forest and the land of mystic tales and ancient spirits whence he had taken her. That was the place of her heart, and if he loved her, he must let her go.

With respect," said Red, and his voice had gone so quiet people hushed each other to hear him, "my tale is yet unfinished; you should hear me out. And it is her answer I have come to hear, not yours.

His eyes reflected the open grey of the autumnal sky.

Third person allows a deeper exploration of the relationships between characters. We can see their misunderstandings and hear what they think about each other. We can create a more complex structure with various story threads running parallel.

You are a devious woman, Blackthorn,' she said. 'I prefer the term strategic thinker.

We cannot know the future. All we can do is face it bravely. We should take heed of those we love and respect. But in the end, we make every decision alone.

Look forward, not back," the Hag said. "All is change. Do not regret. Instead, learn.

The future was in our own hands. If we wanted a world where such things were possible, it was for us to make it.

There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different.

I like the truth, even when it does trouble me.

His touch was like a bard's on his instrument, and it awakened a deep and mysterious music in my body.

Trust can be a hard lesson; hope still more difficult.

I wonder how it takes you, that moment when everything turns to shadows. - Somerled.

I know it's hard for you to trust me. If I ever find the man who did this to you, who made you so frightened, I'll kill him with my bare hands. But you can trust me.

Bran held his voice leve. "In time,you will regret these words. You may hold me captive now, and believe me helpless. But each foulword you speak of her brings your death a little closer." --Bran to Eamonn

I had grown up. I had learned that being a woman was knowing when to stand firm and when to compromise. I had learned to laugh and weep; I had learned that I was weak as well as strong. I had learned to love. I was no longer a rigid, upright tree that would not flex and bow, even though the gale threatened to snap it in two; I was the willow that bends and shivers and sways, and yet remains strong.

In all experience, there is something to be learned. In deepest sorrow, wisdom is found. In the well of despair, hope rises.

My feet will tread soft as a deer in the forest. My mind will be clear as water from the sacred well. My heart will be strong as a great oak. My spirit will spread an eagle's wings, and fly forth.

You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path.

Don't you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it?

You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bolt; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life. I would not wish such a love on anyone, man or woman, for it can make your life a paradise, or it can destroy you utterly.

You are... you're like a beating heart. A glowing lamp. I've never met anyone like you before.

She seemed fragile like a moonflower "? destined to bloom for a single lovely night, and then to fade and fall.

He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.

As for religious faith, a lack of it shouldn't stop us from doing good deeds for their own sake.

I have listened to many tales in my life, and told a few of my own. If this has taught me anything, it is that there are some occurrences that change the course of things, that make an alteration far beyond their own apparent magnitude. It is like the throwing of a tiny pebble into a pool, how it makes an ever-expanding circle of ripples, spreading right across the water's surface.

Water and stone Flesh and bone Night and morn Rose and thorn Tree and wind Heart and mind

Stronger than iron crueler than death sweeter than springtime it lives beyond breath

I wish- I wish I could dry these tears, I wish I could make this better for you. But I don't know how.

My daughter," I said blankly. "I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant's father to be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him?

You thought you'd never give up your vocation, a voice whispered inside me. You thought you'd never even consider it. But you've met the one man who could change your mind. He is your perfect complement. He is Cathal to your Clodagh; he is Bran to your Liadan. No wonder you conjured up those images. No wonder they make you weep.

There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own.

We draw our strength from the great oaks of the forest. As they take their nourishment from the soil, and from the rains that feed the soil, so we find our courage in the pattern of living things around us. They stand through storm and tempest. They grow and renew themselves. Like a grove of young oaks, we remain strong.

Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn't like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.

I do not view suicide as wicked, just terribly sad. There is only one death, but it is like a stone cast into a pond - the ripples stretch far. Such an act must leave a burden of sorrow, guilt, shame and confusion on an entire family. A natural death, such as my father suffered, is hard enough to deal with. A decision to end one's life must be still more devastating for those left behind. I cannot imagine the degree of hopelessness someone must feel to contemplate such an act.

I could not imagine living away from Sevenwaters, away from all that was so much a part of me. Maybe, if you cared enough about someone, you could do it and not feel your spirit torn in two. But the forest keeps her hold on all those who are born there, and they cannot travel far without the yearning in them to return.

I wanted so much to keep you safe. I did my best. I'm sorry things didn't come out different for the two of us. I wish I could have been good enough for you.

Every man or woman who makes a stand helps keep the flame of freedom burning.

I thought of betrayal and how it came so easily - in a word, a glance, a gesture.

Become my friend and you embrace a nightmare.

The world is simple, I think, in its essence. Life, death, love, hate. Desire, fulfillment. Magic.

Hope is such a tenuous quality. To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for ... Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.

The most powerful weapon is hope.

What I do . . . the path I tread . . . it brings some choices that test me hard.

How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go.

I had learned how it felt to want more than the sweet touch of hand to cheek or lips to palm, more than a kiss, more than an embrace. I was starting to discover that it is not only the mind that understands love, but also the body.

I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness.

Because if I see you defeated, then I think I will see Alban defeated, and if that happens, none of us can go on. To guard you is to guard the heart of this land of ours.

The greatest tales, well told, awaken the fears and longings of the listeners. Each man hears a different story. Each is touched by it according to his inner self. The words go to the ear, but the true message travels straight to the spirit.

He and I"¦we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond.

Real life is not quite as it is in stories. In the old tales, bad things happen, and when the tale has unfolded and come to its triumphant conclusion, it is as if the bad things had never been. Life is not as simple as that, not quite.

But I believe we all have an inner goodness; a little flame that stays alight through the worst of trials.

If she were here I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off her. I would hold her so close she'd beg me to let her breathe. I'd kiss her so hard she'd plead for mercy. I'd unfasten her clothing and lie with her onthat hard bed, and what was between us would be as far above the ordinary congress between man and woman as the stars are above their pale reflections in the lake below.

I should have realized, when Cathal kissed me in the hallway, that my response was the first raindrop heralding a storm.

For indeed you have a choice. You can flee and hide, and wait to be found. You can live out your days in terror, without meaning. Or you can take the harder choice, and you can save them.

You may be your own best helper, if you choose the right path.

Wake the sleeper must, and confront his fears, or risk being lost in the dark places of the mind forever.

Perhaps he could still weave together the broken threads of his life. And yet, I wanted him here now. I needed him here. In the darkness, if I sat very still, I could almost feel his presence by me, quite near, but not too near. Didn't I promise to keep you safe, he would say softly. I have never broken a promise. Don't look so worried, Jenny. And yet, he would be careful. Careful not to move too close. Careful not to frighten me. Waiting still. I am your shelter. Don't be afraid.

You cannot poison what is between us with your foul words. She is my light in the darkness and Johnny is my pathway ahead.

A dream is the key that unlocks the mysteries of the waking world...

a tree is never just a tree, it is bigger and deeper and wiser than a girl like you will ever be.

Even in that time of utter darkness, somewhere deep inside me the memory of love and goodness had stayed alive.

If a man truly loves,....He does not consider the obstacles, the restrictions, the reasons why his choice may be flawed or impratical. He gives no heed to what others may think. His heart has no room for that, for it is filled to the brim with the unutterable truth of his feelings.

Our strength comes from that magic, from the earth and the sky, from the fire and the water. Fly high, swim deep, give back to the earth what she gives you...

But there is one thing you must remember, if you forget all else. There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own vision. All changes in the blink of an eyelid; yet all remains the same.

Good and bad; shade and sunlight, there's but a hair's breath between them. It's all one in the end.

This is a long goodbye, yet not time enough. I have no aptitude for this. I cannot learn this. I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness.

Eat of my deep earth, drink of my living streams, for I am your Mother. Your heart is my wild drum, your breath my eternal song. If you would live, dance with me!

Nobody expects you to exhibit godlike strength, excepting maybe yourself.

Death, of course, should not be feared, but awaited with certain wonder. To die was to step across a threshold into a new world, unknown, unimaginable.

He was sitting not far away, watching me, and I surprised a smile on his face, the first real smile I had ever seen him give, a smile that curved and softened the tight mouth, and warmed the ice-cool eyes; a smile that brought the blood to my face and made my heart turn over.

If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words.

Only - only that, if you believe the tales, it's in the nature of our people to go to war and to kill, just as it is to sing and play and tell stories. Perhaps they are two halves of the same whole.

Nothing comes without a price.

Your actions are your own. Your choices are your own. Each of us carries a burden of guilt for decisions made or not made. You can let that rule your whole life or you can put it behind you and move on. Only a madman lets jealousy determine the course of his existence. Only a weak man blames others for his own errors.

Johnny was sobbing in shuddering gasps, telling me his small tale of woe, that the world was suddently different, and that he wanted me to make it better, right now please." --Liadan's interpretation of her baby's cries.

Liadan," he said, staring intently at the ground. "Yes," I whispered. "Don't wed that man Eamonn. Tell him, if he takes you, he's a dead." --Bran

You don't like it that I am the one you need to keep the wolf from the door; that comes as no surprise. But I am the one you have. At some point we'll both have to risk telling the truth.

She went on because there was no going back.

A wonder tale can be truer than true," I said. I had learned (...) that the deepest kind of truth can be found in the strangest and wildest of stories. One may not meet a fire-breathing dragon on the way to the well. One may not encounter an army of toothed snakes in the woodshed. That does not make the wisdom in those tales any less real.

This had been real: real in its flaws and uncertainties, real in its small triumphs, real in its compromises and understanding.

The warmth of his embrace soaked into me, a powerful charm against the dark things.

Breath of the winds; dancing flame; peace of the earth; song of the waves.

His thoughts inhabit a different plane from those of ordinary men; the simplest interpretation of that is to call him crazy.

My world was changing, and I was not ready for it.