Kate Elliott Quotes & Sayings

But the plains do not continue forever, just as happiness and sorrow both eventually come to an end. Their first hint of the highlands was a rough stretch of land pitted with gorges and rugged valleys that were barren of cover and composed of rock as stubborn and sharp and unyielding as a saint. The jaran playfully called it krinye-tom, the little mountains; Tess called it hell and wondered what the big mountains were like. — Kate Elliott

I don't know," said Diana. "I gave up a long time ago trying to decide whether we're ever ourselves or are only playing roles. And who could tell which the role was, the passionate kisser or the ruthless conqueror? Maybe they both are roles. Or maybe they're both true. Can't two contradictory things exist inside one person? — Kate Elliott

You learn to ride on the path and keep your eyes open so you can see what is there, not what you wish were there ... And then after all you might discover that what is there is what you wished for all along. — Kate Elliott

Sometimes, when you wished too hard for something, you paid a bitter price. — Kate Elliott

Because when beauty awes you, you must halt and try to catch your breath and your staggered heart. — Kate Elliott

Hyacinth, we all have our limits. I can't save the world. I can't stop this war. Maybe, just maybe, I can communicate a few things through art. — Kate Elliott

Now take Prince Temnos to Princess Berenise. We need him in our custody in order to succeed. — Kate Elliott

Annoyance and pathos warred in my breast, and after a short struggle, annoyance punched pathos in the snout like the voracious shark it was. — Kate Elliott

Can we ever see the truth when desire blinds us? Or do we call it the truth because it is what we wish to see? — Kate Elliott

But you will die in any case, Ilyakoria. What good is everlasting fame to a man if he dies unloved? — Kate Elliott

First and foremost, any great empire thrives on movement: stable lines of supply, of trade, of information. This movement must be unobstructed for officials on imperial business, and monitored and restricted for others on a scale that varied depending on the necessity of these functions to imperial strength and the likelihood of such restrictions causing dangerous levels of dissent. — Kate Elliott

We are none of us one thing alone and unchanging. We are not static, or at rest. Just as a city or a prince's court or a lineage is many people in one, so is a person many people within one, always unfinished and always like a river's current flowing onward ever changing toward the ocean that is greater than all things combined. — Kate Elliott

But in life, every moment can be said to be critical; all is revealed and concealed, created, maintained, and destroyed in the great dance of time. — Kate Elliott

We don't have to accept the things we might change. — Kate Elliott

That is true. But nevertheless, you are like the prisoners in the cave, your legs and necks shackled by your maps and your walls so that all you can see is the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave. You think they are the truth, but they are only a shadow of the truth, which lies - " He gestured to the sky and the plain and the distant spiral curl that was the growing city of Sarai. " - out here, under the gaze of the sun and the moon and the stars. — Kate Elliott

All people are bound by ties and obligations, and the most binding ties of all are those between kin. — Kate Elliott

From the table, far enough away that they thought I couldn't hear, Bintou whispered to Wasa, "I can't believe she talks to him like that!" "I'm going to learn to talk like that!" murmured Wasa. "I can't run about and hit people like Cat does, but I can become an orator like Cousin Bee. I'm going to become a hero and cause trouble all over everywhere!" "Girls! — Kate Elliott

If one does not hope one will not find the unhoped for, since there is no trail leading to it, and no path. - HERACLEITUS OF EPHESUS — Kate Elliott

Ilya, what do you want?" His smile vanished. When he contemplated his vision, his gaze narrowed until Tess could almost imagine it as a single beam, piercing to the heart of the universe, capable of vaporizing any object that stood in its path. "The world. — Kate Elliott

I lifted my chin. "All right then. You are always very precise when it comes to magic. So I've observed. And really, really don't like to get things wrong. So when you saw there were two young women, that day you came to this house, why did you not even ask about my cousin?"
His crooked smile made my heart turn over. "All right, then. I'll tell you." He paused as if gathering courage, before he forged on. "When I saw you coming down the stairs that evening, it was if I were seeing the other half of my soul descending to greet me. — Kate Elliott

For decades I've had an intense interest in the history and mythology of the Silk Road, I think in part because an aspect of me loves the resonance of long distance travel as a theme or anchor, if you will, for narrative. The ways that cultures rise and fade across centuries, the ways cultures connect and conflict, absorb and reject, transform or remain static: As a writer this is thematic content that never gets old for me. A million million stories rise out of the endless back and forth of cultural contact in all its best and worst aspects, and everything in between. Weave that within a story of adventure or empire or a journey into unknown spaces and I'm in writer and reader hog heaven. — Kate Elliott

Narrative gets engineered until we start to believe it has always run that way. — Kate Elliott

It is not in Victory that you learn how strong you truly are.
- Stronghand — Kate Elliott

That was why I kept stealing books out of the parlor and returning them. For the only books I ever took were my father's journals. Didn't I have some right to them, being that they, and I, were all that remained of him? — Kate Elliott

We are bound to our ancestors and to those who made us, whether we want to be or not. What matters is what we make of what we are. — Kate Elliott

There are no chances." He favored her again with that unreadable look. "You succeed or you fail. Battles are not won by men who refuse to take risks." It — Kate Elliott

As he takes his place I know that just as the crowd sees him and his sister standing on either side of their cousin, reminding everyone they are royal cousins, the crowd also sees me within arm's reach of the young lord rumored to be my lover. Guard your victor's ribbons carefully and you can do very well for yourself, Gargaron told me. As — Kate Elliott

Never let it be said that I could not talk my way out of any trouble that I could not punch. — Kate Elliott

I am trapped, and for once in my life I see no path through these Rings. Four — Kate Elliott

No, no! I'll carry the waste bucket. No one will ever suspect Prince Temnos would do that, will they?" His grin heartens me. We — Kate Elliott

The skin of frozen snow crunched satisfyingly beneath my boots as I smashed each step into the ground just as I planned to smash my foes. — Kate Elliott

How can it be men would put up with such an arrangement?'
'Why do some people demand it of women but not of men? It is just another way of doing things. As my father would have said, folk will have their customs according to their nature and their surroundings. — Kate Elliott

Naturalists claim that however much the female may be said to love the accoutrements of fashion and furnishings, it is the male who is driven to display himself. — Kate Elliott

If we prosper only through the suffering or death of another, then that is not prosperity. — Kate Elliott

The problem with meddling," said Charles under his breath, "is that for every problem you solve, you create two more. — Kate Elliott

What is freedom?" he asked bitterly, "and who is truly free? We are all bound by what we are, and where we come from."
"Maybe," I said slowly as I considered the turn my life had taken, the lies I had been told, "because we do not look farther than where we have been told to look. Perhaps it would all be different if we weren't afraid of what we are. Or what we might become. — Kate Elliott

Of course we all suffer,' Priya often told her. 'But if you cling to suffering or fight it then it will hold on like a rat. If you accept it's existence and the pain it causes you, then you can release it'. — Kate Elliott

We'll smell of fish forever," I said. "That would be nice. — Kate Elliott

It's the ones who can't let go - of fear or anger, lust or greed, vanity or pride or power - who are most at risk of becoming corrupted. — Kate Elliott

They say that your eyes contain fire, that your face fills with light. — Kate Elliott

We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. — Kate Elliott

The history of the world begins with a seed. The seed is the kernel of what you are, but it is also the promise of what you can become. — Kate Elliott

There's little enough joy, and far too much pain, in a world like this not to appreciate the beauty that comes your way. He — Kate Elliott

No one can fall in love at first sight. Love is built over years, not snapped into existence like a flame that can be as easily extinguished. — Kate Elliott

Are these soldiers really our enemy, or only the worst reflection of our own selves? ... We made them. We have to unmake them, not just defeat or kill them. — Kate Elliott

But aren't all of us like a fine weaving? The pattern the world sees often hides the threads." Tess — Kate Elliott

Luck is only my lover, not my wife," replied Bahktiaan easily. He drew his saber. "If ever I wed, it will be skill and intelligence."
"Tedious bedfellows," said Sergi. — Kate Elliott

War was so simple, wasn't it? Much simpler than justice. — Kate Elliott

A kiss can be like the world turning over. It can be like the tide of a dragon's dream washing through the unseen world that is hidden to mortal eyes but that nevertheless permeates our being. It can be hot and cold together, as vast as the heavens and yet specific to the pressure of hands and the parting of lips. It raised more intense feelings than I had expected, like being engulfed in a storm of lightning. — Kate Elliott

I believe that there is truth to be found inside every person, but that very few people find it because it is dark inside, and deeply hidden, and the trees grow thickly. — Kate Elliott

I meant that in politics there may be times when it's expedient to leave someone in power who's become incompetent, because in a web like that, there are ways to circumvent the damage that person might do. But — Kate Elliott

Male or female, what did it matter, really, when the body yearned? — Kate Elliott

Yana," he said gravely, "you must learn the basic lesson that those who have power will use it, and those who don't must learn to control those who do. You — Kate Elliott

Reason is the measure of all things. — Kate Elliott

Was it not Democritus of your own country who said, 'Well-ordered behavior consists in obedience to the law, the ruler, and the woman wiser than oneself'? Although in the text I read the words were written as, 'the man wiser,' but I can only suppose the scribe wrote the word wrong or meant it to be 'Elder. — Kate Elliott

No greater bond existed than love sealed by trust. — Kate Elliott

When by the power of the heavens the whole world from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun shall be at one in peace, then so shall we all be at peace. You may believe that your country is far away, but not so far away that we cannot ride there. You may believe that your mountains are high beyond measure, but not so high that we cannot cross them. You may believe that the seas are vast, but not so broad that our ships cannot sail them. The gods who live in the heavens will make what was difficult easy, and what was far away, near. — Kate Elliott

When acquaintances embrace, one can read the gap between them. When friends, when siblings embrace, no matter how close, there is still an infinitesimal distance, like a layer of molecules, separating them. When a mother hugs her child, they meet. But when lovers embrace, they don't just meet but join. Tess — Kate Elliott

It is a sad truth, but one acknowledged by any person who can bother to read the law, that the inferior legal status of a woman in Europa means she is best protected by having a powerful family or, lacking that, by finding the strongest protector and marrying him. — Kate Elliott

I'll take Prince Temnos to the Heart Tavern in the Warrens." "Yes, good, that's where Ro took me after I got him out of prison and where I intend to bring anyone from our household who has escaped. I'll meet you there." Without — Kate Elliott

...anyone can make a desert and call it peace... — Kate Elliott

I have to believe he will do as he promised. Yet the truth is that I trust him because of the way he snared my fingers in his. That is the worst reason of all to trust, but my bitter heart will not stop singing its recklessly giddy song. — Kate Elliott

Listen, my father had written. Listen to hear if they are telling the truth or only part of the truth, for that is the lesson of history: that the victors tell the tale of their triumph in a manner to grant accolades to themselves and heap blame upon their rivals. Ask yourself if part of the story is being withheld by design or ignorance. — Kate Elliott

A strong man does not need a silent wife. — Kate Elliott

I had not realized how much anger I held against my heart for all the people who use others as nothing more than tools to build a house for themselves, who wrap chains around others and then claim they have the right and even the obligation to do so. — Kate Elliott

A man gets used to riding on at the break of day. Comes to think that movement and noise is where life is, when after all there's life in stillness and quiet too. — Kate Elliott

That reminds me of a song," said Emilia. The women laughed; the men groaned. But the fire was blazing and the night was long, and folk will want entertainment after the tedium of a day's work. Emilia's song detailed the amorous adventures of a water horse who fell in love - if love was the right word - with a series of young women who passed beside the lake in which the creature dwelled and from which he emerged in the form of a good-looking young man of exactly the right sort to catch a young woman's fancy. She had a clear voice and a pleasing timbre, and every local knew the chorus, whose euphemisms about mounting and galloping embarrassed me. We did not sing these sorts of songs in the Barahal house. Rory caught right on and sang the chorus as if born to it. In the laughter and pounding of tables that followed, I said, to no one in particular, "I thought kelpies drowned and then devoured their victims!" The words, innocently spoken, only caused the gathered folk to laugh even — Kate Elliott

But if the gods only cursed us, then we would hate them. And if they only blessed us, then - well, then we'd care nothing for their laws because we'd respect nothing but our own pleasure. — Kate Elliott

When you have a full and eager heart in you, you must not go to a man whose heart is empty and weak. — Kate Elliott

Coming onstage for her first entrance, Diana felt transported to some ancient scene. They could have been any group of itinerant actors out making their way along the Silk Road, the famous Earth trade route that ran across the mountains and deserts and steppes of Asia, stopping in this medieval oriental city made glorious by its marble colonnades and gentle silk banners. Even — Kate Elliott

We make ourselves into the net that we throw across the ocean — Kate Elliott

And once you saw the world from three, or five, different roads, the view was never the same. The map changed and altered, and its details became more accurate. The landmarks receded or grew, depending on the angle from which you observed them, and at once, there might be an escarpment from which the astonished traveler would rendezvous with her selves and could suddenly comprehend the land as it truly was. — Kate Elliott

The young who are male can never resist showing off their knowledge, no doubt because they possess so little. — Kate Elliott

I think that when small-minded people envy and despise, then they will mock, thinking it their only weapon. I am not, I hope, a small-minded person. I will not mock you. I'll tell you straight to your face that I don't trust you and can't trust you... — Kate Elliott

You're not afraid to take risks." "Neither are you, Diana. Don't ever lose that quality. Once a person stops pushing and growing, she is as dead in the spirit as if she were dead in the flesh. — Kate Elliott