Jacqueline Carey Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

Night breeds its own sort of anticipation.

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 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.

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?

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.

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!

Clearly, Im drawn to characters with inner conflicts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spontaneity is the province of youth

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

My lord. It is too much, and not enough

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

The tapestry of history is woven of many threads.

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.

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade

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

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.

There is no folly like the folly of the wise.

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

Garner knowledge, by any means possible

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

A nervous silence loosens tongues

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

Wars come and go; politics endure.

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

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