You know, ogres only sound stupid. Most are pretty smart." "And it's a shallow person who judges anyone by the way they sound. I'm so shallow I'm surprised I don't reflect myself.

He was overconfident”, she told him. “And I won so the gods must have thought I was right. Otherwise they’d have made me lose. You know how trial by combat works.” “You won because you were good” he corrected her. “I find it hard to believe the gods sit forever about the Divine Realms betting on jousts and trials by combat.

What happens to each of my female heroes, certainly, is they find something bigger than themselves that they are honored to serve. It's not giving up your family.

Daja doesn't exactly need to be tested on whether she's honorable or not." "Doesn't she? Don't all of you? This is your first taste of the things which may come from your being powerful mages. People will offer you gold, status, even love. I want to know how you will react. If want to know if your teachers will release greedy, thoughtless monsters into the world.

Threats are the last resort of a man with no vocabulary.

Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you--and you won't let them do anything for fear you'll be hurt. That's selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?

Have I mentioned that I hate it when you're right?", she asked instead. Alanna shook her head. "No, I don't believe you have. As far as I could tell, you never thought I was right.