Kristin Cashore, Graceling
30 quotes
"Everyone was willing to take some small risk to lessen the damage of their ambition and disorder and lawlessness."
"I'm not going to wear a red dress," she said."It would look stunning, My Lady," she called.She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. "If there's anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I'll hit him in the face."
"What are you grinning at?" Katsa demanded for the third or fourth time. "Is the ceiling about to cave in on my head or something? You look like we're both on the verge of an enormous joke.""Katsa, only you would consider the collapse of the ceiling a good joke."
"I wouldn't marry Giddon to save my life," Katsa said. "Not even to save yours.""Well." Raffin's eyes were full of laughter. "I'd leave that part out."
"You won't even take your bow? Are you planning to throttle a moose with your bare hands, then?""I've a knife in my boot," she said, and then wondered, for a moment, if she could throttle a moose with her bare hands."
"You're afraid of your own anger."
"Hidden yourself in a hole and dared to burden no one with your grievous friendship? I will have friends, Katsa. I will have a life, even though I carry this burden."
"Lady Katsa, is it?" "Yes, Lord Prince.""I've heard you have one eye green as the Middluns grasses, and the other eye blue as the sky.""Yes, Lord Prince.""I've heard you can kill a man with the nail of your smallest finger."She smiled. "Yes, Lord Prince.""Does it make it easier?""I don't understand you.""To have beautiful eyes. Does it lighten the burden of your Grace, to know you have beautiful eyes?"
"Your brothers are the foolish ones for not seeing the strength in beautiful things."
"She would thump them both, and she would apologize to neither."
"How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill."
"But everyone has some kind of power to hurt people."
"Alone in the forest, Katsa sat on a stump and cried. She cried like a person whose heart is broken and wondered how, when two people loved each other, there could be such a broken heart."
"He leaned heavily on the desk now, as if danger had strengthened him before and its lack now made him weak."
"There was no helping her tears. For they would leave Po behind… She cried into his shoulder like a child. Ashamed of herself, for it was only a parting, and Bitterblue had not wept like this even over a death. ‘Don’t be ashamed,' Po whispered. ‘Your sadness is dear to me. Don’t be frightened. I won’t die, Katsa. I won’t die, and we’ll meet again."
"They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed."
"A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?"
"Please, Katsa," he finally said. "At least talk to me".She swung around to face him. "What it there to talk about? You know how I feel, and what I think about it.""And what I feel? Doesn't it matter?"
"I can't know your feelings", he said ,"if you don't know them yourself."
"You know,” he said, “I wish you could see this cave.”“What’s it like?”He paused. “It’s...beautiful, really.”“Tell me.”And so Po described to Katsa what hid in the blackness of the cave; and outside, the world awaited them."
"She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth."
"What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face."
"If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would be not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers."
"It's as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus."
"When she came back minutes later with a great, fat, skinned rabbit, Po had built a fire. The flames cast orange light on the horses and on himself. "It was the least I could do," Po said, drily, "and I see you've already skinned the hare. I'm beginning to think I won't have much responsibility as we travel through the forest together.""Does it other you? You're welcome to do the hunting yourself. Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks, and scream if I hear strange noises."