This is a—a proposal of marriage?” he asked me, and there was the very smallest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, something I had never seen before. “I suppose so,” I said, blushing again. “And, as you see, I’m doing it properly, on my knees.” “This would, however, be a partnership of equals you’re offering, I imagine?” “Undoubtedly.” (448-49)
Juliet MarillierA wonder tale can be truer than true," I said. I had learned (...) that the deepest kind of truth can be found in the strangest and wildest of stories. One may not meet a fire-breathing dragon on the way to the well. One may not encounter an army of toothed snakes in the woodshed. That does not make the wisdom in those tales any less real.
Juliet MarillierI have listened to many tales in my life, and told a few of my own. If this has taught me anything, it is that there are some occurrences that change the course of things, that make an alteration far beyond their own apparent magnitude. It is like the throwing of a tiny pebble into a pool, how it makes an ever-expanding circle of ripples, spreading right across the water's surface.
Juliet MarillierHope is such a tenuous quality. To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for ... Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.
Juliet Marillier