A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest.
Damn it, a man has to see himself reflected somewhere to be sure he is real.
No man should be reminded that he has screamed in front of people who delighted in it.
Goodbye, FitzChivalry Farseer.
There are times when it is comforting to sleep with sunlight on your eyelids. And times when quiet talk at night is better than sleep, no matter how weary you are.
I know of nothing more warming than hot meat and tea and good fellowship.
I’ve been the reader sending that letter or small gift to a writer I’ve never met. I sent them because I wanted that writer to know that I’d met their characters. Their characters had become my friends. I hadn’t read a story; I’d shared a life.
It felt good, she suddenly decided, to set herself to a physical task. For this small time, at least, she could see the results of her effort and her will.
There is security in knowing that a friend has your back, even if he is sound asleep.
He is not my lover. He is far more than that to me, far more precious. I am the White Prophet and he is my Catalyst, and we are come here to change the course of time. I am here to see that Icefyre lives.
She did not understand why humans longed for so much intense contact. Were their own thoughts never sufficient for them? Why did they look for others to fulfill their needs instead of simply taking care of themselves?
I was thirty-five that year. When I was twenty, I would have considered a man of my current age to be teetering on the verge of dotage. These days, it seemed neither young nor old to me, but a suspension between the two.
Ah, Fitz, Fitz, we are who we are and who we ever must be.
The art of diplomacy is the luck of knowing more of your rival’s secrets than he knows of yours. Always deal from a position of power. These were Shrewd’s maxims. And Verity abided by them.
Humanity has become a lonely race, and dangerously arrogant in our solitude.
When you speak in riddles, it exasperates me. Yet when you try to speak clearly of yourself, it frightens me.
I bent and kissed his brow in farewell. And then, grasping the rightness of that foreign tradition, I named him as myself. For when I burned him, I knew I would be ending myself, as well. The man I had been would not survive this loss. “Good-bye, FitzChivalry Farseer.
Chade’s boy cried.
I did not see you there I said. You never did replied Ketrikken.
Your mother was a good mate for Fitz. She gave him what he needed. But this is the woman I would have chosen for us.
A woman with golden hair rode a horse through the forest. “Three hunt as one at the trail’s edge. The queen, the foreteller, and the stable boy smile to see it so.