Juliet Marillier Quotes & Sayings

Death is final. The felling of trees is final. What we ask of you is simply the recognition of change, Jena. Yours is a world of constant change. You must learn to change, too. You spend a great deal of time worrying about others: trying to put their lives right, trying to shape your world as you believe it should be. You must learn to trust your instincts, or you are doomed to spend your life blinded by duty while beside you a wondrous tree sprouts and springs up and buds and blooms, and your heart takes no comfort from it, for you cannot raise your eyes to see it. — Juliet Marillier

If a man truly loves, ... He does not consider the obstacles, the restrictions, the reasons why his choice may be flawed or impratical. He gives no heed to what others may think. His heart has no room for that, for it is filled to the brim with the unutterable truth of his feelings. — Juliet Marillier

The end of the story is of your making, nobody else's. You can do with it as you choose. There are as many paths open to your hero as branches on a great tree. They are wonderful and terrible, and plain and twisted. They touch and part and intermingle, and you can follow them whatever way you will. — Juliet Marillier

I like your anger,' the Hag said mildly. 'I like your resistance. It makes you less than courteous, but altogether more interesting. — Juliet Marillier

I almost forgot," said Red. His voice sounded very strange, as if from a long, long distance. He reached into his pocket. "I have something for you."
He put it into my hand. A round, shiny, perfect apple, green as new grass with a faint blush of rosy pink. And now his eyes had changed so that I saw what lay there, hidden deep, so deep only the bravest or most foolhardy would seek to find it.
He has always understood me better, without words. So I laid my hand on my heart, held it there for a moment, and then moved it over and touched my palm against his breast. My heart. Your heart. — Juliet Marillier

Don't you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it? — Juliet Marillier

My daughter," I said blankly. "I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought
it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant's father to
be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely
sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him? — Juliet Marillier

A fine man", observed my sister, pouring mead for the two of us. "Well trained. — Juliet Marillier

Come, dear heart. Lean on me and let us walk this path together. — Juliet Marillier

I wonder how it takes you, that moment when everything turns to shadows. - Somerled. — Juliet Marillier

Prophecies don't simply come about of themselves, you know. They need a little helping along. — Juliet Marillier

There was so much of beauty here: the neat, small tracks of a foraging creature, stoat or marten; the inticate tracery of a skeleton leaf, still clinging vainly to its parent tree as, little by little, time stripped it of its substance, leaving only the delicate remembrance of what it had been. — Juliet Marillier

I 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 Marillier

Good and bad; shade and sunlight, there's but a hair's breath between them. It's all one in the end. — Juliet Marillier

Faolan launched himself across the bridge, uttering a prayer to any deity that might be prepared to listen. Let me reach her in time, let her keep hold, let this wretched apology for a bridge not crumble under my feet ... — Juliet Marillier

Can this be love that twists and tears the heart so? Does love give nothing but the power to hurt each other? Is this what makes the simplest touch blend longing and terror in equal measure? Whatever this is, it feels like a mortal wound. — Juliet Marillier

Three children lay on the rocks at the water's edge.
A dark-haired girl, two boys, slightly older.
This image is caught forever in my memory, like some fragile creature preserved in amber. — Juliet Marillier

There is no place here for softness. Let folk in too close and you offer them up as weapons for your own destruction. — Juliet Marillier

I am a child of Alban's earth Her ancient bones brought me to birth Her crags and islands built me strong My heart beats to her deep wild song. I am the wife with bairn on knee I am the fisherman at sea I am the piper on the strand I am the warrior, sword in hand. White Lady shield me with your fire Lord of the North my heart inspire Hag of the Isles my secrets keep Master of Shadows guard my sleep. I am the mountain, I am the sky I am the song that will not die I am the heather, I am the sea My spirit is forever free. — Juliet Marillier

I like the truth, even when it does trouble me. — Juliet Marillier

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

There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different. — Juliet Marillier

Hope 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

You thought you'd never give up your vocation, a voice whispered inside me. You thought you'd never even consider it. But you've met the one man who could change your mind. He is your perfect complement. He is Cathal to your Clodagh; he is Bran to your Liadan. No wonder you conjured up those images. No wonder they make you weep. — Juliet Marillier

How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go. — Juliet Marillier

But some things did not change ...
Courage, for instance. Dedication to a cause. Comradeship. When they were strong and pure, when they came from deep in the bone, those qualities could hold fast against all odds. — Juliet Marillier

Dawn will come,' I told him quietly. 'The night can be very dark; but I'll stay by you until the sun rises. These shadows cannot touch you while I am here. Soon we'll see the first hint of grey in the sky, the color of a pigeon's coat, then the smallest touch of the sun's finger, and one bird will be bold enough to wake first and sing of tall trees and open skies and freedom. Then all will brighten and color will wash across the earth and it will be a new day. I will stay with you, until then. — Juliet Marillier

Johnny was sobbing in shuddering gasps, telling me his small tale of woe, that the world was suddently different, and that he wanted me to make it better, right now please.
Liadan's interpretation of her baby's cries. — Juliet Marillier

Real life is not quite as it is in stories. In the old tales, bad things happen, and when the tale has unfolded and come to its triumphant conclusion, it is as if the bad things had never been. Life is not as simple as that, not quite. — Juliet Marillier

Third person allows a deeper exploration of the relationships between characters. We can see their misunderstandings and hear what they think about each other. We can create a more complex structure with various story threads running parallel. — Juliet Marillier

You are ... you're like a beating heart. A glowing lamp. I've never met anyone like you before. — Juliet Marillier

You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path. — Juliet Marillier

Amazing, I thought nobody could tell that man what to do.
-Foalan to Bridei
Talking about Broichan — Juliet Marillier

Trust can be a hard lesson; hope still more difficult. — Juliet Marillier

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. — Juliet Marillier

We draw our strength from the great oaks of the forest. As they take their nourishment from the soil, and from the rains that feed the soil, so we find our courage in the pattern of living things around us. They stand through storm and tempest. They grow and renew themselves. Like a grove of young oaks, we remain strong. — Juliet Marillier

What sort of man would you choose for yourself, Liadan?, he asked me.
One who is trustworthy, and true to himself, I answered straightaway. One who speaks his mind without fear. One who can be a friend as well as a husband. I would be contented with that. — Juliet Marillier

strung a small white stone with a hole in it. 'This is more precious — Juliet Marillier

At the end of the parapet, a long black coat lay neatly folded on the wall. At the other end stood my sister and her lover. Tati's arms were wound around Sorrow's neck, her body pressed close to his, as if she would melt into him. His hands were enlaced in my sister's long hair as he strained her slight form against him, white on black. Their eyes were closed; their lips clung; they were lost in each other. It was beautiful and powerful. It was impossible. — Juliet Marillier

I could not imagine living away from Sevenwaters, away from all that was so much a part of me. Maybe, if you cared enough about someone, you could do it and not feel your spirit torn in two. But the forest keeps her hold on all those who are born there, and they cannot travel far without the yearning in them to return. — Juliet Marillier

Even in that time of utter darkness, somewhere deep inside me the memory of love and goodness had stayed alive. — Juliet Marillier

Stronger than iron crueler than death sweeter than springtime it lives beyond breath — Juliet Marillier

For indeed you have a choice. You can flee and hide, and wait to be found. You can live out your days in terror, without meaning. Or you can take the harder choice, and you can save them. — Juliet Marillier

There's a light shining in him, moving him forward: the light of freedom. That's what draws all of us to follow, to take risks, to keep on fighting when we see our comrades fall beside us. But there's no light without shadow. — Juliet Marillier

Later I stirred again, knowing the night was passing, but unwilling to wake fully lest this fair vision be lost forever. There was an arm across me, holding the cloak around me; and the same old blanket covered the two of us. Darragh lay behind me, his body curled neatly against my own, his living warmth a part of me, his slow peaceful breathing steady against my hair. I kept quite still. I did not allow myself to return to full consciousness. I thought, if it all ended right now, I wouldn't mind a bit. Let it end now, so I need never wake. And I slipped back into sleep. — Juliet Marillier

He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath. — Juliet Marillier

It seemed to me it would be better to die standing up to a tyrant than to survive as a tool of his will. — Juliet Marillier

The man journeyed far, and he heard and saw many strange things on his travels. He learned that - that the friend and the enemy are but two faces of the same self. That the path one believes chosen long since, constant and unchangeable, straight and wide, can alter in an instant. Can branch, and twist and lead the traveler to places far beyond his wildest imaginings. That there are mysteries beyond the mind of mortal man, and that to deny their existence is to spend a life of half-consciousness. — Juliet Marillier

If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words. — Juliet Marillier

I told you once," said Red, "that I wanted to hear your voice. I did not think the first words I would hear would be these."
"Those were not the first words," I whispered, fighting tears. I would not weep. — Juliet Marillier

A tale can start in many ways. Thus, it is many tales, and at the same time each of these is but one way of telling the same story. — Juliet Marillier

His thoughts inhabit a different plane from those of ordinary men; the simplest interpretation of that is to call him crazy. — Juliet Marillier

You risked much, to give your love to such a one.
I stared at him. Love?
Did you not know, until now, when you must say goodbye? — Juliet Marillier

I had grown up. I had learned that being a woman was knowing when to stand firm and when to compromise. I had learned to laugh and weep; I had learned that I was weak as well as strong. I had learned to love. I was no longer a rigid, upright tree that would not flex and bow, even though the gale threatened to snap it in two; I was the willow that bends and shivers and sways, and yet remains strong. — Juliet Marillier

I saw that in him she had found her sun and moon, her stars and her dreams. — Juliet Marillier

You don't like it that I am the one you need to keep the wolf from the door; that comes as no surprise. But I am the one you have. At some point we'll both have to risk telling the truth. — Juliet Marillier

My world was changing, and I was not ready for it. — Juliet Marillier

Let there be a time in the future, I prayed, when he laughs with his children, and plays on the shore with them, and spends all his nights in loving arms. Let us have that. To whom I was praying I did not know. The future was in our own hands. If we wanted a world where such things were possible, it was for us to make it. — Juliet Marillier

You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bolt; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life. I would not wish such a love on anyone, man or woman, for it can make your life a paradise, or it can destroy you utterly. — Juliet Marillier

Who would awaken the past?
It shines like a sunrise
And cuts like a fine blade. — Juliet Marillier

You are a devious woman, Blackthorn,' she said.
'I prefer the term strategic thinker. — Juliet Marillier

I cannot expiate my sin, yet I am compelled to try. My mind will not let me rest. There must be something I could have done, some way I could have acted, something I could have changed to snatch victory from bitter defeat. — Juliet Marillier

There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own. — Juliet Marillier

The girl is not yours, or mine, or anyone's. But for now, she travels under my protection, and let him who lays a hand on her answer to me. — Juliet Marillier

This is a long goodbye, yet not time enough. I have no aptitude for this. I cannot learn this. I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness. — Juliet Marillier

Somewhere, beneath that darkness, I had seen both strength and honor. But his words of despair mocked my efforts at healing. — Juliet Marillier

I had learned how it felt to want more than the sweet touch of hand to cheek or lips to palm, more than a kiss, more than an embrace. I was starting to discover that it is not only the mind that understands love, but also the body. — Juliet Marillier

You are a child no longer, whatever you might wish. You are a woman with a woman's body, and you do not think or feel as you did back there at Sevenwaters, when you ran wild in the forest and the trees spread their canopy to shelter you. Men will look at you. Come to terms with it, Sorcha. You cannot hide forever. They will look at you with desire in their eyes. You were taken against your will, and it damaged you. But life goes on. — Juliet Marillier

He and I ... we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond. — Juliet Marillier

Seven years of this and I'll have lost whatever edge I once had," I said. "I'll have turned into one of those well-fed countrywomen who pride themselves on making better preserves then their neighbors, and give all their chickens names. — Juliet Marillier

I wept in self-pity, and because I knew you could never go back. You chose your path, and that was it. — Juliet Marillier

Wake the sleeper must, and confront his fears, or risk being lost in the dark places of the mind forever. — Juliet Marillier

She went on because there was no going back. — Juliet Marillier

Goodbye Curly. I'll see you next summer. Keep out of trouble, now, until I come back. — Juliet Marillier

The threads of many beliefs can run side by side; from time to time they tangle, and mesh into a stronger rope. — Juliet Marillier

I'm here, Sorcha.
I would not believe it at first; it had been so long since he had touched my mind in this way.
I'm here. Try to let go, dear one. I know how it hurts. Lean on me; let me take your burden for a while.
I could scarcely see him; he was on the far side of the fire, behind the others and half turned away, with his head still in his hands. It seemed as if he had scarcely moved at all.
How can you? How can you know?
I know. Let me help you.
I felt the strength of his mind flow into mine, and somehow he managed to close off the terrible, the dark and secret things that he had dreaded sharing with me, and fill my head with pictures of all that was good and brave. — Juliet Marillier

Ask us for any help you need ... Let us be strong for you. — Juliet Marillier

What I do . . . the path I tread . . . it brings some choices that test me hard. — Juliet Marillier

Love ... it complicates our games, old friend, it insinuates itself, disrupting the most carefully laid plans and unmanning the most disciplined heart. — Juliet Marillier

How could you live without human touch? Wasn't that the first thing you knew, when you came into the world and they laid you on your mother's belly? Her hand would come across and stroke your back, and cup your head, and she would smile through tears of exhaustion and wonderment. That touch of love would be the very first thing for you. — Juliet Marillier

He was seated on the bench now. He had his left elbow on his knee, his right arm across his lap, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. White face, red hair: snow and fire, like something from an old tale. The book I had noticed earlier was on the bench beside him, its covers shut. Around Anluan's feet and in the birdbath, small visitors to the garden hopped and splashed and made the most of the day that was becoming fair and sunny. He did not seem to notice them. As for me, I found it difficult to take my eyes from him. There was an odd beauty in his isolation and his sadness, like that of a forlorn prince ensorcelled by a wicked enchantress, or a traveller lost forever in a world far from home. — Juliet Marillier

We don't say cannot here at Shadowfell,' Tali put in firmly, silencing him. 'And we don't say impossible. — Juliet Marillier

The error was not yours, Somerled," Eyvind said quietly, moving to the doorway. "It was mine. I failed to teach you the one lesson you could not do without: how to be a man. — Juliet Marillier

Ana wished very much that she could discuss this with Faolan — Juliet Marillier

The god honors the faithful. And who is more true than a man who keeps his oath, though it breaks his heart? — Juliet Marillier

As for me, I had found love, and that was a gift worth suffering for. — Juliet Marillier

After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort. — Juliet Marillier

His touch warmed my whole body. I was longing to throw my arms around him and hold him close, but the magic of this moment was like a single, lovely strand of cobweb, fragile and delicate. One wrong move and it would snap beyond mending. — Juliet Marillier

We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the Fair Folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life - not to say you'd meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who'd strayed too far into the forest, and disappeared; or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms, and gone away for a while, and come back subtly changed. Strange things could happen in those places. Gone for maybe fifty years you could be, and come back still a young girl; or away for no more than an instant by moral reckoning, and return wrinkled and bent with age. These tales fascinated us, but failed to make us careful. If it was going to happen to you, it would happen, whether you liked it or not. — Juliet Marillier

But I believe we all have an inner goodness; a little flame that stays alight through the worst of trials. — Juliet Marillier

All that he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness. — Juliet Marillier

Not all were joyful tales; we needed to acknowledge that love was not just kisses, smiles, and fulfillment, but also sacrifice, compromise, and hard work. — Juliet Marillier

First person allows deeper insight into the protagonist's character. It allows the reader to identify more fully with the protagonist and to share her world quite intimately. So it suits a story focused on one character's personal journey. However, first person shuts out insights into other characters. — Juliet Marillier

Become my friend and you embrace a nightmare. — Juliet Marillier

My feet will tread soft as a deer in the forest. My mind will be clear as water from the sacred well. My heart will be strong as a great oak. My spirit will spread an eagle's wings, and fly forth. — Juliet Marillier

Don't punish me for what you see as your own failings. I want to be with you more than anything in the world. I've dreamed of this since that day you spoke of, the day you called me 'my heart' and surprised me with a kiss. Never mind the handfasting, if you don't want that. But please don't push me away. I know you love me. I love you with all my heart. Please give this time. — Juliet Marillier

You may be your own best helper, if you choose the right path. — Juliet Marillier

...if you give respect, yet get respect back. If you offend, you get...retribution. — Juliet Marillier

And the sad demise of my father before I saw the light of day. Ulf was — Juliet Marillier

I thought of betrayal and how it came so easily - in a word, a glance, a gesture. — Juliet Marillier