What difference, being a pawn for the Light or a pawn for the Dark?" "There is a great difference. One difference is that for the Dark, certainly, you are a pawn. For the Light, you are a free human being, free to make mistakes, to do wrong, even. You are free to choose, whether or not you believe it.
Alison CroggonYou have a great heart, but will only find it to be so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift. . . . I have endured much suffering and still remain unbitter and unclosed.
Alison CroggonI think you are a liar because you think you know what is true. You think you feel what is true. But you do not yet know what you do feel and what you do know. Your desire and do not take; you love and are too afraid to feel your love; you conceal your vanity and pettiness from yourself; you are afraid to look into your soul and see what you are. That iis why i think you are a liar.
Alison CroggonNot even I can see all ends, but I have been in this world long enough to know that a choice is not choice and breeds slow ills, even were it done for the highest reasons.
Alison CroggonThere is no shame in loving: it is the sign of a generous heart, and pain the price of an open soul.
Alison CroggonBy the light," he said, when he had mastered himself. "I think that beats singing a lullaby to a stormdog for simplicity and economy, Maerad. But I wish I had known that you simply had to blow at Hulls to get rid of them. It would have saved me a few scars.
Alison CroggonLove is never easy. We begin by loving the things we can, according to our stature, but it is not long before we find that what we love is other than ourselves and that our love is no protection against being wounded. Do we then speak to dominate what we love, to make it bend to our will, to stop it from hurting us even though to do so is to betray love? And that is only where the difficulty begins.
Alison Croggon