Sharon Shinn Quotes & Sayings

I realized a long time ago, with a certain amazement, that no mattter how important something is in your life, no matter how huge it is, how much space it takes up in your heart and in your thoughts, unless you mention it to other people, they have no idea it exists. — Sharon Shinn

Yes, Jenna, I love you with all my heart. And with my atoms and molecules and electrons and whatever further breakdown you require. — Sharon Shinn

My love for you is elemental and immutable, and it will sustain me until I die. — Sharon Shinn

Senneth looked at her. "But that doesn't mean he loves you any less."
Kirra shook her head. "Or that I love him any less." She gave Senneth a small smile. "I think I own him, Senneth. I think there is nothing I could do to drive him away. That moves me and frightens me and makes me want to be very, very careful with his heart. So I will not put him on display in the drawing rooms of the Twelve Houses. — Sharon Shinn

I hadn't thought specifically about doing graphic novels until a couple of my friends got contracts for them. Then I started picturing how various of my stories or poems would work in an illustrated format and thinking how cool that would be. — Sharon Shinn

Sometimes we become what we see. Sometimes we take what we see and make it the model for what we refuse to become. — Sharon Shinn

I am not like other women. I do not like the things they like or feel the things they feel. And it is better so. I do not want to be like them. I do not want to turn into one of them. — Sharon Shinn

I have changed for the last time
this is the man I will be till I die. And that man loves you. — Sharon Shinn

Yet the world is the same as it always was. It is merely that you see it with new eyes. — Sharon Shinn

We cannot go backward. We cannot erase time and events. But we can go forward, hand in hand, hope in our hearts and love lighting our way. — Sharon Shinn

If love makes you sad, you acquire a little depth, a little compassion. If it makes you happy, you learn how to be joyous. Every relationship should color your soul to a certain degree, don't you think? Every friendship, every love affair - each one should build up the chambers of your heart the way a sea creature builds the chamber of his shell. — Sharon Shinn

I thought it would not hurt to remind you that love is a powerful force in this world, invisible though it seems. — Sharon Shinn

She was not who she wanted to be. And not only did she not know how to make herself over into someone else, she wasn't even sure who she wanted to become. — Sharon Shinn

Love is a popular romantic notion that leads to nothing but its own brand of misery. — Sharon Shinn

She smiled, if he could see that, and waited for him to ask the real question. But he was silent. He wanted her to volunteer the story, she realized, and she could just as easily choose to say nothing. But he deserved to know. They all deserved it, and Kirra already knew it, and Cammon may have guessed it, because Cammon could read souls, but Tayse was the only one she would tell. — Sharon Shinn

You can hardly walk up to complete strangers and say, "Good for you! You've risked banishment and brutality and ostracism just to be together, and I applaud your choice! You're in the vanguard of social change, and even though it's hard on you, the generations that come after you will have an easier time of it because you were brave enough to fall in love." So instead I told them I liked their baby. It means the same thing, but it's more socially acceptable. — Sharon Shinn

There is nothing but heartache for a coru woman and a hunti man," she said, deliberately contrary. "He cannot control her and she cannot change him."
"He never fails her and she always moves him," Darien corrected. "She can trust his strength, and he can be lifted by her joy. — Sharon Shinn

She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon, or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year.
He said in a voice that only she could hear: "I wish you were not my sister."
She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire. — Sharon Shinn

Is love the ultimate illusion? Or is it what it seems to be
the greatest transformation of all? (Glyrenden) — Sharon Shinn

It is very easy to shun someone who is deliberately cruel, and everyone loathes a man who is brutal and vicious. Such people have a hard time winning followers. But an individual who is gracious, who is attractive, who smiles and flatters and praises - that is a person who can lead whole nations to disaster. Who would not want to follow such a man or woman? Everyone is drawn to beauty and wit. — Sharon Shinn

She should leave you. Or you shouldn't leave her. I haven't worked it out yet. But you shouldn't be apart. — Sharon Shinn

The debt of friendship is never collected," he interrupted. "And nothing is ever owed. — Sharon Shinn

Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there. — Sharon Shinn

And how is your head? Better?" he asked.
"Very much. Sometimes it hurts." Right now it was throbbing. "But every day I am much improved."
"Where did you hit it? Are you bruised?"
I put a hand to the back of my head, a little to the left, where I had landed with such jarring force. "Here," I said. "It's still a little tender."
And leaning forward, he touched my hair right where I had just laid my hand. Such was he glamour that attended him that I expected the ache to instantly melt away, healed by his royal caress. But in fact, I felt a sudden leap in my heart that made the pain briefly more intense. — Sharon Shinn

You must invest out of passion! You must invest out of desire! The same way you invent. The same way you fall in love! If you are too careful, you end up with something timid and unimportant. Something you don't mind losing. And when was that ever something you wanted to fight for? — Sharon Shinn

He is so kind that he makes me search my soul to find new ways to be compassionate to others. — Sharon Shinn

If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed. — Sharon Shinn

If you did leave,' he said. 'If you did simply walk out the doors and stroll down the mountain, leaving behind no word of where you were going or why, I would come looking for you. I would never stop looking for you. I would find you, too. — Sharon Shinn

He looked down at his empty glass. "One of the other ways in which I am different from my father," he said. "I am not interested in marrying where I do not love."
I spoke in a jesting voice. "And of all the women in the eight provinces, you have not been able to find one you could love?"
Now he looked at me again, and his face was completely serious. "That's the problem," he said. "There is one. — Sharon Shinn

I was Amazement
I was Desire
I was Ecstasy and Rapture and the slightest bit of Greed. — Sharon Shinn

I have never been interested in taking students. They waste one's time and interrupt one's schedule. — Sharon Shinn

He leaned upon her as if there was no other support anywhere in the world, and she held him as if she would undertake no other task for all eternity. — Sharon Shinn

To some extent, it doesn't matter who we are or where we came from - what kind of family brought us into this world,' Josie said softly. 'We become who we were meant to be, and all those other influences fall away. — Sharon Shinn

I am who I am, born that way, and will die that way. — Sharon Shinn

I wonder," I said. "Perhaps you can meet with an accident on the road. Harwin and I can bring back the sad news that you died while we were traveling."
Gisele looked amused - and a little intrigued. "But wouldn't you be expected to return with my corpse in tow?"
"Not if you - fell off a cliff and drowned, and the water carried you away," I said, improvising quickly. "Not if you were mauled by wolves andeaten ."
"Oh, yes, do have me devoured by wild creatures. — Sharon Shinn

The townhouses looked bedraggled, unkempt, like an old homeless woman with an interesting history but a perilous future. — Sharon Shinn

And if I should leave you, for any reason," he added, tightening his grip as she struggled to free her hand, "I will return to you. That is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning and the thunderbolt falling tomorrow night. That is as sure as the god's existence. I will come back to you, or I will find you - over and over again, as often as we are parted, until the end of the world itself. — Sharon Shinn

I don't believe she'll be available for the rest of the day," Gabriel said.
"No? Is she in Velora, perhaps? I could go to the school and meet with her there."
"No, she's not in Velora."
Raphael's voice took on a note of concern. "Is she ill, then? I hope not. Is it a fever?"
"No, not a fever - I mean, she's not ill at all. She's just unavailable."
"Raphael's face took on a quizzical expression. "She has not been locked in her room, has she? Really, Gabriel - — Sharon Shinn

Last time I was watching her, I left her in her crib and when I came back, she was a puppy. Just for a couple of hours, then she was herself again.' I mean, I almost couldn't speak. I said, 'Did it occur to you to tell me this?' And she said, 'Well, I thought it might be a one-time thing. I didn't want to worry you. — Sharon Shinn

Everybody's afraid of love, because love is what hurts the most. — Sharon Shinn

She had something I could not have, and so I resented her - but I realized the fault was mine and not hers. — Sharon Shinn

My shoes made an odd, clacking sound on the cobblestones of the courtyard, no matter how quietly I placed my feet. It was like being followed by the audible manifestation of my own shadow. — Sharon Shinn

But I am king. And the well-being of my kingdom depends on my sound judgment and clear head. And those things depend on my state of happiness. And I have known for a long time that my state of happiness depends on you. — Sharon Shinn

Sweet Jovah singing, he had slept beside her all night, and kept her warm with his wings; and perhaps he did not hate her after all. — Sharon Shinn

And you're not leaving," she said. "Promise me."
It was as if she had asked him to promise to keep breathing, to notice sunshine, to permit the spinning of the earth. What choice did he have? Even if he left her, she would be camped in his heart, an insistent and willful presence. She would match her strides to his on any journey he ever took; she would lie beside him on any bed.
Amalie, he said, "that's the easiest promise I've ever had to make. — Sharon Shinn

I had been right the first time. His sonorous voice echoed through a hollow place of sorrow, catching its reverberations from those ragged walls. His gaiety masked a deep well of loneliness; he was a bright outward shape wrapped around shadows. — Sharon Shinn

Love is like water from the ocean." Damiana said. "You cannot empty it dry. Take bucket after bucket of water out of the Cormeon Sea, and there is still more water left than you could ever use up. That's what love's like. — Sharon Shinn

You're wasting your time, she wanted to tell them. I don't care about your cars or your properties or your bags of gold. What have you done with your life? What are you going to do with it? That's all that matters. — Sharon Shinn

Do you love me?" he asked.
I fell silent.
"For the rest of it is glitter and noise," he said. "At the heart of it all is love. You make that choice, and you go forward from there. — Sharon Shinn

it was as if that long-healed wound was raw again; all the complex memories crowded once more to the forefront of her mind. An old despair should not feel so new, but a new despair could haul an old one out of hiding. — Sharon Shinn

So do I wish I was to be king? That is not a question I ask myself. I ask myself, Would I be a good king? Would I be quick witted and generous of spirit and full of that boundless energy? Or would I be clumsy and stupid and dulled by my own prejudices? I try to be a good man, since I am alive at all, and hope that that teaches me what I would need to know if I was ever faced with a higher challenge. — Sharon Shinn

It is better to bow to the dictates of the wind than to try to chase or chain it. — Sharon Shinn

How did they find out?" Donnal inquired. "Did you set them on fire?"
"You know, it's so rare that I actually do that, and yet that's always the first question anyone asks me." -Senneth — Sharon Shinn

Family tends to be one of the recurring themes in my fiction. — Sharon Shinn

You're just afraid," I flung at him. "Of what would happen to you and your life at court if you were to carry Elisandra away. Of what your father would say. Of what Bryan would do to you."
Now he, too, looked angry. "I am afraid of many things, but those are not the fears that keep me from action," he said.
I turned my back on him. "Then I don't understand you," I said.
I heard the door open. "No," he said, "and you never have. — Sharon Shinn

You must welcome bounty whenever it comes, hunti man. It is often inconvenient. But if you insist on accepting it only when it suits your schedule, you will find yourself very poor. — Sharon Shinn

A truth that no one knows is still the truth. — Sharon Shinn

Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment. — Sharon Shinn

And might I live long enough to see the world yet again as a place completely different, through eyes that see another truth not yet revealed? — Sharon Shinn

You almost threw it back!' she repeated, and her voice filled with mock horror.
'You foolish boy! Are you always so careless with items of value?'
'No,' he said, abruptly sober. 'I know what matters. And I never throw those things away. I hold on to them as long as I can. — Sharon Shinn

Maybe I should keep you in a walled garden so you can't ever leave.'
The image this conjured up was so vivid that for a moment he couldn't think how to answer. He glanced down at her, his mouth open as if to speak, but no words came out. The truth was, he thought, feeling humble, feeling stupid, he didn't think he would mind any more than the raelynx did being kept in perpetual service to the princess. 'Men generally don't make very good pets,' he said at last, and she went off in a peal of laughter. — Sharon Shinn

A truth comes out when it must;
A dream comes true when it will.
Though the world turn to ash and dust
A secret's a secret still. — Sharon Shinn

Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.'
'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends. — Sharon Shinn

You have not traveled enough," she said. "Or you'd know that every journey
makes its own map across your heart. — Sharon Shinn

I'm fascinated by the idea of disparate, difficult people learning to trust each other when they're thrust into hellish circumstances. — Sharon Shinn

If there is no god, what is left but science? What is left to endow us with any grace? You can tell me the chemical makeup of my skin and my brain, but how can you explain away my soul? And if there is no god to watch over me, chastise me, grieve for me, rejoice for me, make me fear, and make me wonder, what am I but a collection of metals and liquids with nothing to celebrate about my daily living? — Sharon Shinn

For the world slows and the stars falter, and all that remains is you ... — Sharon Shinn

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness. — Sharon Shinn

For people who make up stories for a living, that is the ultimate success: knowing that, when the book closes, when the series ends, the adventure is not over. It goes on without the creator, in the minds of the people who love it. You can't stop the signal. Once it's broadcast, it continues on forever, pulsing past star clusters, lighting up new worlds, collecting new fans, till the end of time itself. — Sharon Shinn

Without an understanding of what a thing really is, it cannot be either uncovered or changed. (Aubrey) — Sharon Shinn

Would you not marry even for love?'
'Love does not seem to bring anyone much happiness as far as I have observed. So I think the lesson learned is never to love.'
'The lesson is to love wisely,' he replied. — Sharon Shinn

Now his grin lit his face with a sunny halo. — Sharon Shinn

As writers, we do our best to conjure a world so vivid that the reader can practically walk through it - but we're still only using words and relying on readers to do a lot of work of imagining. Providing pictures as well as words offers a whole new dimension to the experience of consuming a story. — Sharon Shinn

Manufactured
synthetic
even virtual, if that is what you turned out to be
I would love you. — Sharon Shinn

No such thing as too tall," she said. She had automatically reached for a brush and now she began uncoiling the tangles of my hair. "It's good for a woman to be able to look into a man's eyes. Then she's not afraid to tell him what she thinks. — Sharon Shinn

Elisandra read while I tried my hand at embroidering a pillowcase that she lent me. The results were execrable. I had no skill with a needle, and no desire to learn, either.
'I wouldn't shame a dog by laying this upon his bed,' I remarked, showing Elisandra my efforts. She actually smiled.
'I like it,' she said. 'I'll put it on one of my pillows.'
'Bryan won't let you sleep in the same bed with him if you bring this as your dowry,' I said with an attempt at humor.
She bent her head back over her book. 'Then stitch me another. — Sharon Shinn

The promises of the future cannot undo the harm of the past. — Sharon Shinn

I'm not sure how writers and artists of other graphic novels join forces, but this is how the process worked for me: First, I produced my final script. Then, Mark Siegel, my editor at First Second, assembled information about 10 or 12 different artists and had me look through their portfolios to see what kind of styles appealed to me. — Sharon Shinn

His brown eyes were set back in deep hollows, as though he looked out from a place of shadow on all the verities of the world. — Sharon Shinn