Rachel Hartman Quotes & Sayings

It's as if I have just solved Skivver's predictive equations, or even better, as if I have intuited the One Equation, seen the numbers behind the moon and the stars, behind mountains and history, art and death and yearning, as if my comprehension is large enough that it can encompass universes, from the beginning to the end of time. — Rachel Hartman

...emotions fly humans toward art — Rachel Hartman

Love is not a disease ... I cannot let them cut you out of me, nor her either. I will cling to my sickness, if it is a sickness. I will hold it close to me like the sun. — Rachel Hartman

Rest of the court, to watch the Golden Plays?" "I can't. Tomorrow is dress rehearsal for the Treaty Eve concert. — Rachel Hartman

I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who'd rather avoid them. — Rachel Hartman

Why live in fear that he might find me disgusting someday, when I could make it happen right now? — Rachel Hartman

Peaches and Cheese:
The vagabond sun winks down through the trees,
While lilacs, like memories, waft on the breeze,
My friend, I was born for days such as these,
To inhale perfume,
And cut through the gloom,
And feast like a king upon peaches and cheese!
I'll travel this wide world and go where I please,
Can't stop my wand'ring, it's like a disease.
My only regret as I cross the high seas:
What I leave behind,
Though I hope to find,
My own golden city of peaches and cheese! — Rachel Hartman

A feeling rose in me, and I just let it, because what harm could it do? It only had another thirty-two adagio bars of life in this world. Twenty-four. Sixteen. Eight more bars in which I love you. Three. Two. One. — Rachel Hartman

We shall have long meetings where Kiggs agonizes and Glisselda teases him. That's the pattern so far. — Rachel Hartman

If it can be known, I want to know it. — Rachel Hartman

Once I had feared that telling the truth would be like falling, that love would be like hitting the ground, but here I was, my feet firmly planted, standing on my own. — Rachel Hartman

I was half lawyer; I always noticed the loopholes. — Rachel Hartman

Are you in love with Prince Lucian?' screamed my uncle. 'What were you up to when I arrived? You weren't going to mate right here in the snow, were you? — Rachel Hartman

Love is not a disease. — Rachel Hartman

Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it. — Rachel Hartman

He was laughing, silently, and then we were both laughing, and then something changed. It was as if I had been watching the world through oiled parchment or smoked glass, which was yanked abruptly away. Everything grew very clear and bright; the music burst forth in majesty; we stood still and the room turned around us; and there was Kiggs, right in the middle of all of it, laughing. — Rachel Hartman

It's such a relief after all these years to learn that you recovered from your fright," he said in a low voice, giving my hand a squeeze, "and that you grew up so pretty!"
"Were you worried?" I asked, touched.
"Yes. What were you, eleven? Twelve? At that age we're all gawky, and the outcome is always in doubt. — Rachel Hartman

I think I've heard that ballad," I said. "It's beautiful but it ends sadly. — Rachel Hartman

The truth may not be told. Here is an acceptable lie. — Rachel Hartman

Bend like a willow. You made it sound so simple."
"It was simple."
"Indeed. I bent and changed everything. This is going to have consequences. — Rachel Hartman

However strenuously the world pulls us apart, however long the absence, we are not changed for being dashed upon the rocks. I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home. — Rachel Hartman

We would be going to war for peace. — Rachel Hartman

There are two sacred causes in this world," he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. "Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need. — Rachel Hartman

I spent that many years thinking I was alone. Then you prance into my life, nearly giving me a paroxysm, and now you deign to tell me there are more. — Rachel Hartman

I mistook you for a metaphor. — Rachel Hartman

I was inclined to leave love unspoken. — Rachel Hartman

Haven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing. — Rachel Hartman

How dare the world be beautiful when I was so horrifying? — Rachel Hartman

I do what I have always done. I reach across and bring the worlds together. — Rachel Hartman

The Saint - for I was convinced he was a Saint, indeed, whatever the rest of us might have been - now had a fistful of dangling mind-fire threads. "She is broken, this one, in her mind and heart," he said, carefully scooping up the blazing filaments and packing them back into Jannoula. "You must learn to fill yourself with yourself, Blessed."
"D-don't break her any further," I pleaded, feeling responsible.
He gave me a sidelong look, and for a moment I thought he was angry. But he said, "Would you break a mirror, Seraphina, because you fear to look into it? — Rachel Hartman

Are we irretrievably broken?
Never beyond repair, good heart. — Rachel Hartman

If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars. — Rachel Hartman

Sir James waved a gnarled hand. They're nothing but feral file clerks, dragons. They used to alphabetize the coins in their hoards. — Rachel Hartman

Kiggs. "You were just a squire when they were banished; technically, you weren't banished at all." Maurizio — Rachel Hartman

On a good day, he was friend enough. On a bad day, running into his inadequacy was like tripping up the stairs. It hurt, but it felt like my own fault. — Rachel Hartman

I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured. — Rachel Hartman

The world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and gods. — Rachel Hartman

I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature. — Rachel Hartman

My companions ate the bear. I found I had no appetite. — Rachel Hartman

The future would come, full of war and uncertainty, but I would not be facing it alone. I had love and work, friends and a people. I had a place to stand. — Rachel Hartman

He smiled sadly, then placed his hand around mine so we were holding the book together. "I believe that - with everything I have," he said, holding my gaze. He kissed the edge of the book because he could not kiss me. — Rachel Hartman

I became the very air; I was full of stars. I was the soaring spaces between the spires of the cathedral, the solemn breath of chimneys, a whispered prayer upon the winter wind. I was silence,and I was music, one clear transcendent chord rising toward Heaven. I believed, then, that I would have risen bodily into the sky but for the anchor of his hand in my hair and his round soft perfect mouth. — Rachel Hartman

I cannot perch among those who think that I am broken. — Rachel Hartman

Camba had bent her long neck down to Ingar's level and was muttering in his ear. "Do you feel the breeze on your face?" I heard her say. "That's yours, and worth feeling. Look at those orange clouds. All the trials of a day may be endured if you know there's such a sky at the end of it. Some days I told my heart to wait, just wait, because the sunset would teach me again that my pain was nothing compared with the eternal, circling sky. — Rachel Hartman

I had felt the shot coming; I hadn't realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition? — Rachel Hartman

For a fleeting instant, in the sad curve of his shoulders, I saw what Comonot could not: the core of decency; the weight he had carried so long; the endless struggle to do right in the wake of this irreversible wrong; the grieving husband and frightened father; the author of all those love songs. For the first time, I understood. — Rachel Hartman

Some sober part of my brain seemed to observe everything I did, clucking disdainfully, informing me that ought to be embarrassed, yet making no move — Rachel Hartman

O saar, beware!
Beware the horde,
The ones you never see.
We build your lairth,
Repair, invent,
We do all this for free.
You torch our hideth
You crunch our boneth
Kill with impunity,
But we are not
Tho helpless now.
Our day cometh. We are free. — Rachel Hartman

Sometimes the truth has difficulty breaching the city walls of our beliefs. A lie, dressed in the correct livery, passes through more easily. — Rachel Hartman

Enough mind chatter. I imagined every thought encapsulated in a bubble; I exhaled them into the world. Gradually the noise ceased, and my mind was dark and still. — Rachel Hartman

All is well
or could be, if we worked to make it so. We were the fingers of the world, putting itself to rights. — Rachel Hartman

Orma had given me a timepiece that emitted blasphemy-inducing chirps at whatever early hour I specified. — Rachel Hartman

Nothing was just one thing; there were worlds within worlds. Those of us who trod the line between were blessed and burdened with both. — Rachel Hartman

Walk with an open heart, and you will hear the call. You will see your task shining before you, like a star. — Rachel Hartman

Of love. Yes, that was it: he thought I meant to proposition — Rachel Hartman

Crisis first, love later. — Rachel Hartman

Keeping my smile raised like a shield between us, I curtsied and quit the room. — Rachel Hartman

A single action could derive from many motivations. I should never assume. — Rachel Hartman

I don't mean to imply that they were cowards ... , Maurizio said, shrugging, clearly implying that [they] were cowards. — Rachel Hartman

The beauty of the place moved me; I loved how the clean air felt in my lungs, how far I was from everything I had ever known. People I'd hurt, people I'd failed, people who thought me a monster. Here there was no monster greater than the ragged mountains. — Rachel Hartman

More insomniacs!' cried the doctor. 'Come in, come in. — Rachel Hartman

He was exactly my height, which surprised me; my awe of him had made him seem taller. — Rachel Hartman

Did I become court composer through masterful procrastination? Hardly! — Rachel Hartman

I did not understand that I carried loneliness before me on a plate, and that music would be the light illuminating me from behind. — Rachel Hartman

Claude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable. — Rachel Hartman

Music is only work when someone else makes you do it. — Rachel Hartman

He looked up at the reddening sky and said with a self-deprecating laugh, "You put me to shame, Seraphina. Your bravery always has."
"It's not bravery; it's bullheaded bumbling."
He shook his head, staring off into the middle distance. "I know courage when I see it, and when I lack it. — Rachel Hartman

Please, Orma, I've already gotten you in so much trouble - "
"That I can't possibly get into more. Take it." He wouldn't stop glaring at me until I'd put the earring back on its cord. "You are all that's left of Linn. Her own people won't even say her name. I - I value your continued existence."
I could not speak; he had pierced me to my very heart. — Rachel Hartman

I understood something about myself as well, even if I didn't have the will to examine it just then. — Rachel Hartman

I also tend to blame myself first," said Camba. Her head was still shaved for mourning, though she'd rehung her golden earrings. "The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone. Pende played his own part. He told you your mind was bound and that it was problem, but did he make even the slightest attempt to help you?"
"He doesn't deserve this," I said, unsure where her argument was leading.
"Of course not," said Camba. "And neither do you deserve all the blame. Sometimes everyone does their best and things still end up wrong. — Rachel Hartman

I'm attracting small children," Orma muttered, twisting his hat in his hands. "Shoo it away, will you? — Rachel Hartman

Who will kiss you? Who will rock you to sleep?" His voice was slow, drowsy.
"You never did," I said, trying to tease him. "You were more father to me than my father, but you never did that."
"Someone should. Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not. — Rachel Hartman

He chuckled into my hair, enjoying this. I loved him terribly just then, how he puzzled through obscure scholarship and reveled in ideas, never mind that he'd called my mind hell. — Rachel Hartman

Ah, I could last a long time on those smiles. I would sow and reap them like wheat. — Rachel Hartman

And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust. — Rachel Hartman

How did you stand lying about yourself for years? You must have felt cut off from the whole world."
I fought down the lump in my throat. "I did indeed. And then I met this prince who seemed able to see through me, to the truth behind the lies. He was terrifying and fascinating, but to my amazement, it was an immeasurable relief to be seen. — Rachel Hartman

But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?"
"I'm not human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my default condition."
I couldn't help it; I laughed, and teas weleld in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma, distilled to his elemental Orma-ness. — Rachel Hartman

The resolve written in his eyes said no, but I could see exactly where I would have to push, and how hard, to break that resolve. It would be shockingly easy, but I found I did not wish it ... Some part of him would break, along with his resolve, and I did not see a way to make it whole again. The jagged edge of it would stab at him all his life. — Rachel Hartman

He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that - or perhaps because of it - he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertigi-nous moment, made me want to be better than I was. — Rachel Hartman

The thing about reason is that there's a geometry to it. It travels in a straight line, so that slightly different beginnings can lead you to wildly divergent endpoints. — Rachel Hartman

A thousand regrets I've had in love,
A thousand times I've longed to change the past.
I know, my love, there is no going back.
No undoing of our thousand burdens.
We must go on despite our heavy hearts.
A thousand regrets I've had in love, but I shall never regret you. — Rachel Hartman

All the important parts, yes," I said firmly. "Maybe not all the eccentric details. Ask, and I will answer. What do you want to know?"
"Everything." He had been leaning on his elbows, but he pushed back now and gripped the balustrade with both hands. "It's always this way with me: if it can be known, I want to know it. — Rachel Hartman

He was impugning my virtue. I ought to have been offended, but for some reason the idea tickled me. That could be my next career: instrument of torture! Seducing prisoners, and then revealing my dragon scales! They would confess out of sheer horror. — Rachel Hartman

Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have - your voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written great books, but no one else will ever write YOUR book. It's worth writing. That is the belief that carries me through. — Rachel Hartman

There was a great brightness and, um ... Imagine what it would look like if you could see music, or thought. — Rachel Hartman

I smiled into the darkness. There was nothing "just" about metaphors, I was beginning to think; they followed me everywhere, illuminating and failing and illuminating again. — Rachel Hartman

I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and it turns out they don't need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with. — Rachel Hartman

I was feverish; I couldn't keep down food. Orma stayed by me the entire time, and I suffered the illusion that behind his skin - behind everyone's - was a hollow nothingness, an inky black void. He rolled up my sleeve to look at my arm, and I shrieked, believing he would peel back my skin and see the emptiness beneath it. — Rachel Hartman

But do not make the mistake, Seraphina, of supposing that suffering ennobles anyone. — Rachel Hartman

If you followed logic all the way back to its origin, did you inevitable end up at a point of illogic, an article of faith? Even an indisputable fact must be chosen as the place to start reasoning, given weight by a mind that believed in its worth. — Rachel Hartman

Have you read Belondweg?"
"I coudn't call myself much of a scholar if I hadn't," he said.
He was adorable and he made me smile, but I couldn't let him see. — Rachel Hartman

I'm awestruck that you had warm cabbages sitting around. — Rachel Hartman

We must show them we're superior and put them in their place. Dominate or be dominated. — Rachel Hartman

Playing flute was the one thing I knew could make people see a human, not a monster. — Rachel Hartman

Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach. — Rachel Hartman

I experienced every wing beat as a terrifying drop followed by a stomach-lurching heave. I was sick over a glacier. Brisi watched with interest and screeched, A thousand years from now, that will still be there, frozen in the ice. Unless a quig eats it. — Rachel Hartman

So if the Infernum is an empy interior, what's Heaven in their conception?" I asked, nudging him.
"A second inside-out house, inside, or rather 'outside' the first," he said. "If you cross its threshold, you realize our world, for all its wonder, has been but a shdow, another kind of empitness. Heaven is more than this. — Rachel Hartman

I took a break, stretched, tried again, failed, kicked over the music stand (I am not proud of that), and wonder whether I had reached the limits of my musical ability. Maybe I'd never had any. Surely someone with a modicum of talent wouldn't have to work this hard. — Rachel Hartman

...The Kiggs-Phina way... — Rachel Hartman

He didn't wear his heart on his sleeve, exactly, but he did keep it in a place where I could see it. — Rachel Hartman