Jacqueline Carey famous quotes

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

#Hurt #Pain #Broken

All knowledge is worth having
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Philosophy

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

#Lust #Desire #Made

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Pain #Heart #Flesh

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Love #Children #Loss

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Pain #Loss #Blessing

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

#Suffering #Limits #Observation

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

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

#Variation #Patterns #Endless

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Doe #World #Perceive

Those that yield are not always weak
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Yield #Weak

That which yields is not always weak.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Yield #Weak #Flexibility

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

#Life #Dream #Self

Soon never comes soon enough to a young child.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Children #Enough #Young

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Hate #Two Sides #Blades

Clearly, Im drawn to characters with inner conflicts.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Character #Conflict #Inner Conflict

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

#Hands #Cold #Poignant

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Lying #Littles #Salt

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Heart #Mad #Sick

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

#Thinking #Vines #Body

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Errors #Suits #Problem

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!
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Hurt #Mean #Men

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

#Life #Sweet #Taste

And Kushiel sends no punishment that we are not fit to bear.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Punishment #Bears #Fit

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Kindness #Believe #Flower

What is fear but courage's shadow?
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Shadow

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

#Bears #Chains #Hardest

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Love Is #Life And Death #Tides

For every victory there is a price.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Victory

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

#Character #Figures #Tales

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

#Loss #True Value

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Hands #Fool #Wrists

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

#Lying #Cutting #Darkness

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Wisdom #Struggle #Writing

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Distance #Believe #Fate

The tapestry of history is woven of many threads.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#History #Woven #Thread

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

#Home #Maps #Way

There is no folly like the folly of the wise.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Wise #Wisdom #Folly

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

#Comfort #World #Trouble

Genius requires an audience.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Genius #Audience

Night breeds its own sort of anticipation.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Night #Anticipation

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Father #Struggle #Mean

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

#True Friend #Thinking #Romance

There is as much deception in noise as there is in silence
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Silence #Deception #Noise

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Awkward #Sorrow #Faces

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

#Pain

Pain redeems all. It is the awareness of life, a reminder of death.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Pain #Awareness #Reminders

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

#Grief #Soul #Tears

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Choices #Decision #Return

I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Lying #Wells #Hard Truths

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Karma #Musician #Variation

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

#Mean #Sound #Tunes

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Yield #Rose #Grace

After you, it's all cheap tequila.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Tequila

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

#Philosophy #Path

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

#Answers #Lord #Dangerous

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

#Despair #Companion

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Thinking #Civilization #Lines

If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Loyalty

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

#Fighting #Secret #Dying

Wars come and go; politics endure.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#War #Endure #Comes And Goes

My lord. It is too much, and not enough
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Too Much #Lord #Enough

Spontaneity is the province of youth
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Youth #Spontaneity

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

#Waiting #Enemy #Allies

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Fear #Fate #Cups

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Sad #Grief #Sorrow

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

#Kings #Fall #Grace

It is not wise to meddle with D'Angelines in matters of love.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Wise #Matter

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Dark #Mirrors #Perfect

Happiness is the highest form of wisdom.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Love #Form

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Play #Legends #Events

Nothing spoils idle pleasure like too much awareness
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Too Much #Awareness #Pleasure

Garner knowledge, by any means possible
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Mean

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?
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Sorry #Facts #Enjoy

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
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Honor #Battle #Sake

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

#Wish #Sometimes

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

#Warrior #Love Is #Blood

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Pay #Remember #Sin

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Lying #Asking #Answers

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Loyalty #Stars #Pride

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.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Memories #Heart #Stones

Even a stunted tree reaches for sunlight.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Tree #Sunlight

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

#Kids #Now And Then #Indulge

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

#Stories #Goes On #Speak

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

#Pity #Cruelty #Casts

One must gauge one's trust carefully.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Gauges

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

#House #Doe #Born

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

#Military #Everyday #Oath

A nervous silence loosens tongues
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Sex #Silence #Tongue

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

#Math #Events #Patterns

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

#Dream #Half #Wells

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

#Moving #Crossroads #Without You

And for a price, I will pretend absolutely nothing.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Sex

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

#Mistake #Errors #Gross

Stupid to speak of blame when the wills of the immortals are involved.
-- Jacqueline Carey

#Stupid #Blame #Speak

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

#Stars #Fall #Snakes