The most powerful weapon is hope.

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.

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

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

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.

The most powerful weapon is hope.

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