Mercy was more frightening than murder, because it was harder.

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.

...you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reach your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her.

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.

Have you ridden over anyone you shouldn't?

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

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