It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins

You're the queen, and it's the queen's house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he's highly unlikely ever to be queen.

Things don't ever stay the same. Natural beginnings come to natural or unnatural ends.

Have you ridden over anyone you shouldn't?

It made Fire so angry, the thought of such a medicine, a violence done to herself to stop her from creating anything like herself. And what was the purpose of these eyes, this impossible face, the softness and the curves of this body, the strength of this mind; what was the point, if none of the men who desired her were to give her any babies, and all it ever brought her was grief? What was the purpose of a woman monster?

Part a of scene from 'Bitterblue' between Madlen (Bitterblue's medicine woman) and Bitterblue: Madlen came to sit beside her [Bitterblue] on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?

You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do.