Kristin Cashore famous quotes

When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Monsters #Katsa

The only way for you to keep your mind straight is to run from those who would confuse you.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Running #Mind #Way

I don't want to love you if you're only going to die.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Love You #Want

Brigan was saying her name, and he was sending her a feeling. It was courage and strength, and something else too, as if he were standing with her, as if he'd taken her within himself, letting her rest her entire body for a moment on his backbone, her mind in his mind, her heart in the fire of his. The fire of Brigan's heart was astounding. Fire understood, and almost could not believe, that the feeling he was sending her was love.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Love #Taken #Believe

Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself.
-- Kristin Cashore

#People #Universe

Gratitude takes less energy than anger.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Gratitude #Anger #Energy

I know you don't want this, Katsa. But I can't help myself. The moment you came barreling into my life I was lost. I'm afraid to tell you what I wish for, for fear you'll... oh, I don't know, throw me into the fire. Or more likely, refuse me. Or worst of all, despise me," he said, his voice breaking and his eyes dropping from her face. His face dropping into his hands. "I love you," he said. "You're more dear to my heart than I ever knew anyone could be. And I've made you cry; and there I'll stop.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Love You #Heart #Eye

Brigan spun around to face the man, swearing with as much as exasperation and fury as Fire had ever heard anyone swear. The man scuttled away in alarm.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Men #Fire #Faces

Your horse is named Small. Yes. Mine is named Big. -Fire and Brigan
-- Kristin Cashore

#Horse #Fire #Bigs

Part a of scene from 'Bitterblue' between Madlen (Bitterblue's medicine woman) and Bitterblue: Madlen came to sit beside her [Bitterblue] on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Mother #Queens #Jobs

A quote from 'Fire' where Fire projected a thought to her best friend Archer: "Love doesn't measure that way, she [Fire] thought to him [Archer]. And you may blame me for your feelings, but it isn't fair to blame me for how you've chosen to behave.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Archer #Fire #Feelings

They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Rose #Forests #Graceling

He made her drunk, this man made her drunk; and every time his eyes flashed into hers she could not breathe.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Eye #Men #Drunk

It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins
-- Kristin Cashore

#Depressing #Lying #Unhappy

Would you please do me the honor of telling me WHAT THE BLAZES IS GOING ON?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Honor #Please

I’m bored to death. Perhaps I should pillage one of my neighbors for my own amusement. It seems to work for Drowden.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Bored #Amusement #Neighbor

For now, Lady Queen," he said, "allow us to continue to obey you. But give us honorable instructions, Lady Queen," he said, turning a flushed face to hers. "Ask us to do honorable things, so that we may have the honor of obeying you.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Queens #Giving #Honor

It has been a hard lesson to learn, that greatness requires suffering.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Greatness #Suffering #Lessons

King Drowden has given his men instructions to infiltrate the town, bribe townspeople for the secrets of their neighbors, steal the neighbors’ hidden treasures. Much more subtle than Drowden’s usual smash and burn technique. We do hope Drowden isn’t growing a brain.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Kings #Men #Secret

Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, 'Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!' And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller.
-- Kristin Cashore

#War #Silly #Healing

This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing didn't, than not have it and wish you did.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Wish #Needs #May

Helda's been trying to impress me with the embroidery on the sheets. One more minute and I thought I might use them to hang myself." "My mother did the embroidery," Bittterblue said. Katsa clapped her mouth shut and glared at Helda. "Thank you, Helda, for mentioning that detail.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Mother #Trying #Mouths

What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Ocean #Rose #Snow

How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Girl #Strong #Fighting

You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Causes #Helping #Liable

Love is stupid. It has nothing to do with reason. You love whomever you love.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Stupid #Love Is #Reason

But all I feel is impatience, fury for the opposition I anticipate and the lies I'm going to have to tell to make it happen, and frustration that I can't even take a walk without them sending someone to hover. Attack me," she said. "I beg your pardon, Lady Queen?" "You should attack me, and we'll see what he does. He's probably quite bored--it'll be a relief to him." "Mightn't he run me through with his sword?" "Oh." Bitterblue chuckled. "Yes, I suppose he might. That would be a shame." "I'm gratified that you think so," said Giddon dryly.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Running #Queens #Lying

I wish people would stop hitting Po," whispered Bitterblue. "Well," Giddon said. "Yes. I'm hoping Skye is following my model. Punch Po; go on a long trip; feel better; come back and make up.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Feel Better #Long #People

If we're to be judged by our parents and grandparents, then we all may as well impale ourselves upon jagged bits of rock.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Rocks #Grandparent #May

I’m suspicious of the notion of a single book that would benefit everyone to read.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Book #Benefits #Notion

Bitterblue had never seen a man naked, and she was curious. She decided the universe owed her a few minutes, just a few, to satisfy her curiosity. So she went to him and knelt, which shut him up.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Men #Curiosity #Naked

A book that bores me to tears is a book that neglects character building and quality of prose.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Book #Character #Quality

Saf keeps a vast range of bullies on hand at all times.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Hands #Bully #Range

Teddy grinned again. 'Truths are dangerous,' he said. -'Then why are you writing them in a book?' -'To catch them between the pages,' said Teddy, 'and trap them before they disappear.' -'If they're dangerous, why not let them disappear?' -'Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Book #Writing #Space

Ivan had contrived somehow in the dark of night to replace every watermelon in the watermelon patch with a gravestone, and every gravestone in the engraver's lot with a watermelon
-- Kristin Cashore

#Dark #Night #Gravestone

Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Lying #Heart #Worry

Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and then rescue him.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Morning #Children #Rivers

Everybody was strange. In a fit of frustration, she scratched out strange and wrote the word CRACKPOTS in big letters.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Frustration #Letters #Strange

Katsa turned to Po with tears in her eyes. 'He'll be so angry.' 'He won't stay angry forever.' 'Won't he?' she said. 'People do sometimes.' 'Do they?' he said. 'Reasonable people? I hope that's not true.' Katsa gave him a funny look, but didn't answer. Resumed hugging herself and kicking things.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Eye #People #Forever

Danzhol. The one with the marriage proposal and the objections to the town charter in central Monsea. "Bacon," Bitterblue muttered. "Bacon!" she repeated, then carefully made her way up the spiral stairs.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Way #Towns #Proposal

...that's how memory works ... Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Memories #Disappear #Permission

...when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Space #Disappear #Blank

Bacon improved things dramatically.
-- Kristin Cashore

The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Realizing

Part of avoiding thoughts about something was not encouraging opportunities for that something to makes itself felt.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Opportunity #Avoiding

And of course she understood now why her body wanted to run whenever he appeared. It was a correct instinct, for there was nothing to be got from this but sadness.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Running #Sadness #Body

If she was suggesting she was too wise with the weight of her experience to fall prey to infatuation - well, the disproof was sitting before her in the form of a gray-eyed prince with a thoughtful set to his mouth that she found quite distracting.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Wise #Fall #Thoughtful

Ideas were growing in all directions and dimensions; they were becoming a sculpture, or a castle. And then everyone left her, to return to their own affairs; and she was alone, and empty and unbelieving again.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Ideas #Return #Becoming

His name was Death. It was pronounced to rhyme with "teeth", but Bitterblue liked to mispronounce it by accident on occassion.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Names #Teeth #Rhyme

That was a perfectly reasonable explanation," she said grumpily. "Perhaps my advisers don't lie to me." "Isn't that what you'd want?" asked Giddon. "Well, yes, but it doesn't elucidate my puzzle!" "If I may say so, Lady Queen," said Giddon, "it's not always easy to follow your conversation." "Oh, Giddon," she said, sighing. "If it's any comfort, I don't follow it either.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Queens #Lying #May

Madlen: 'It's a relief to me, Lady Queen, that in your own pain, you take no interest in hurting yourself.' Bitterblue: 'Why would I? Why should I? It's foolish. I would like to kick the people who do it.' Madlen: 'That would, perhaps, be redundant, Lady Queen.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Hurt #Queens #Pain

I hear you're supposed to be good at manipulating people. Try a little harder to make me like you, all right? I'm the queen. Your life will be nicer if I like you.
-- Kristin Cashore

#I Like You #Queens #People

A king who’s innocent of the things of which he’s guilty?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Kings #Guilty #Innocent

Why does everybody throw every troublesome thing into the river?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Rivers #Doe

That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Thinking #Interesting #Said

I've liked you better when Katsa's around," Giddon said. "She's so rotten to me that you seem positively pleasant in contrast.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Rotten #Said #Contrast

For a group of people who claimed to be concerned for her safety, they did seem to have developed rather a habit of encouraging uprisings against monarchs.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Uprising #People #Safety

I don't understand your book. Isn't every book a book of words?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Book

Your face will freeze like that, you know, Kat," Raffin said helpfully to Katsa. "Maybe I should rearrange your face, Raff," said Katsa. "I should like smaller ears," Raffin offered. "Prince Raffin has nice, handsome ears," Helda said, not looking up from her knitting. "As will his children. Your children will have no ears at all, My Lady," she said sternly to Katsa. Katsa stared back at her, flabbergasted. "I believe it's more that her ears won't have children," began Raffin, "which, you'll agree, sounds much less—
-- Kristin Cashore

#Children #Nice #Believe

Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Laughter #Judging #Trying

My life is an apology for the life of my father.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Im Sorry #Father #Apology

Alone with Giddon again, Bitterblue considered him, rather liking the mud streaks on his face. He looked like a handsome sunken rowboat.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Handsome #Mud #Faces

Living is too hard right now. Dying is easy. Let me die.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Dying #Easy #Let Me

Spelling bees? Spelling bees do not scare me. I competed in the National Spelling Bee twice, thank you very much. My dad competed in the National Spelling Bee. My aunt competed in the National Spelling Bee. My uncle WON the National Spelling Bee. If I can't spell it, I know someone who can. So just bring it on...
-- Kristin Cashore

#Uncles #Dad #Fear

We need an ally of Mydogg's or Gentian's pretending to be among the most loyal allies of the king,' Brigan said. 'Shouldn't be so hard, really. If I shot an arrow out the window I'd probably hit on.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Kings #Arrows #Allies

I think.' she said, 'that sometimes we don't feel the things that we are. But others can feel them.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Thinking #Sometimes #Said

But everyone has some kind of power to hurt people.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Hurt #People #Kind

Your brothers are the foolish ones for not seeing the strength in beautiful things.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Beautiful #Brother #Foolish

It's only water," she said. "Tell that to a drowning man," Giddon said.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Men #Water #Drowning

Everyone was willing to take some small risk to lessen the damage of their ambition and disorder and lawlessness.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Ambition #Risk #Lawlessness

She didn't want to go far, just out of the trees so she could see the stars. They always eased her loneliness. She thought of them as beautiful creatures, burning and cold; each solitary, and bleak, and silent like her.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Beautiful #Stars #Loneliness

Go safely. Go safely, she thought to him. what a silly, empty thing it was to say to anyone, anywhere.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Silly #Empty

There was no helping her tears. For they would leave Po behind… She cried into his shoulder like a child. Ashamed of herself, for it was only a parting, and Bitterblue had not wept like this even over a death. ‘Don’t be ashamed,' Po whispered. ‘Your sadness is dear to me. Don’t be frightened. I won’t die, Katsa. I won’t die, and we’ll meet again.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Children #Sadness #Tears

She would thump them both, and she would apologize to neither.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Apologizing

There's no shame in crawling when one can't walk.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Shame #Crawling #Walks

She expected the pain, when it came. But she gasped at its sharpness; it was not like any pain she had felt before. He kissed her and slowed and would have stopped. But she laughed, and said that this one time she would consent to hurt, and bleed, at his touch. He smiled into her neck and kissed her again and she moved with him through the pain. The pain became a warmth that grew. Grew, and stopped her breath. And took her breath and her pain and her mind away from her body, so that there was nothing but her body and his body and the light and fire they made together.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Hurt #Pain #Fire

And she would protect him as fiercely, if it were ever his need- if a fight ever became too much for him or if he needed shelter, or food, or a fire in the rain. Or anything she could provide. She would protect him from anything.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Rain #Fighting #Fire

I've been afraid of being Cansrel,' she said aloud to her reflection. 'But I'm not Cansrel.' At her elbow, Musa said blandly, 'Any one of us could have told you that, Lady.' Fire looked at the captain of her guard and laughed, because she wasn't Cansrel- she wasn't anyone but herself. She had no one's path to follow; her path was her own to choose.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Reflection #Fire #Elbows

Suddenly Po shot into the courtyard from the north vestibule whooping. Katsa, seeing him, broke into a run and they tore at each other through the wash. Just before the moment of impact, Po shifted to one side, crouched, scooped Katsa up, and, with admirable precision, propelled them both sideways into the pool. ... Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Running #Laughter #Impact

I don’t often know who should read what book. It’s a little bit like trying to set people up on a date - a good match is unpredictable and mysterious.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Book #People #Trying

Katsa now sat calmly on the stomach of her vanquished foe. "He was handsome," said said. Po moaned. "Was he beat-to-a-pulp handsome, or perhaps just push-down-a-flight-of-stairs handsome?" "I would not push a seventy six year old man down a flight of stairs," said Katsa indignantly.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Men #Years #Six Year Olds

If he touches you, I'll come in and choke him to death.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Choke

Isn't is lovely to be all together again?" Raffin said, throwing one arm around Po and the other around Bann. -------- She wanted them near, even if they were subsumed by their own affairs, she needed them at sword practice in the morning, at dinner at night, moving and shifting around her, there and gone, back again, arguing, teasing, acting like people who knew who they were.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Morning #Moving #Night

Well then, "Katsa said. "Of course, we'll operate with the greatest possible secrecy, Bitterblue. And for what it's worth, we'll deny your involvement to our dying breaths, and I'll kill anyone who doesn't." Bann began to laugh into Raffin's shoulder. Smiling, Raffin said sideways to him, "Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to say that and mean it?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Mean #Laughing #Dying

At least her last words to him had been words of love. But she wished she'd told him just how much she loved him. How much she had to thank him for, how many good things he had done. She hadn't told him nearly enough.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Done #Lasts #Enough

It always struck Fire, the physical affection between these siblings, who as often as not were at each other's throats over one thing or another. She liked the way the four of them shifted and changed shape, bumping and clanging against one another, sharpening each other's edges and then smoothing them down again, and somehow always finding the way to fit together.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Sibling #Fire #Together

I told you before, Katsa. I won't fight when you're angry. I won't solve a disagreement between us with blows." He lifted the ice and fingered his jaw. He moaned and held the ice to his face again. "What we do in the practice rooms-that's to help each other. We don't use it against each other. We're friends, Katsa. We're too dangerous to each other. And even if we weren't, it's not right.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Fighting #Blow #Ice

Please, Katsa," he finally said. "At least talk to me". She swung around to face him. "What it there to talk about? You know how I feel, and what I think about it." "And what I feel? Doesn't it matter?
-- Kristin Cashore

#Thinking #Faces #Matter

If I'd been trying to kill him, he'd be dead.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Trying

Katsa hugged her for a long time, and Bitterblue understood that this was always how it would be. Katsa would come and then Katsa would go. But the hug was real, and lasting, even though it would end. The coming was as real as the going, and the coming would always be a promise. It would have to be good enough.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Real #Long #Hug

As she left the room, Po went to Katsa, pulled her up, sat himself in her chair, and drew her into his lap. Shushing her, he rocked her, the two of them holding on to each other as if it were the only thing keeping the world from bursting apart.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Two #Rooms #Lap

Mercy was more frightening than murder, because it was harder, and Randa didn't deserve it. And even though she wanted what the voice wanted, she didn't think she had the courage for it.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Thinking #Voice #Murder

She'd lost her fury, somewhere, as they'd talked. She didn't feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Emptiness #Lost #Fury

While I was looking the other way your fire went out. Left me with cinders to kick into dust, what a waste of the wonder you were
-- Kristin Cashore

#Fire #Dust #Way

In the saddle again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Fire #Trying #Mouths

How acutely sometimes the presence or absence of people mattered
-- Kristin Cashore

#People #Sometimes #Absence

Things don't ever stay the same. Natural beginnings come to natural or unnatural ends.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Natural #Ends

Children are geniuses.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Children #Genius

Not all people who inspire devotion are monsters.
-- Kristin Cashore

#People #Inspire #Monsters

Some of the smartest men have a hard time comprehending the obvious.
-- Kristin Cashore

#Hard Times #Men #Obvious