Laurie J. Marks > Quotes

“...how impossible it
is to really make a choice, when the best choice of all is an option you
couldn’t even imagine.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“His dreams were full of bloodshed. He ran and ran, but wherever he fled, his mother's people and his father's people were in battle with each other. And then Shaftali and Sainnaite both turned on him crying out "No one of your heritage will ever cook for us!"
"So what?" he replied, absurdly. "At the rate you're killing each other, there soon will be no one to cook for!”
― Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic

“Clement felt nearly hysterical with exhaustion, and strangling Gilly seemed better than listening to him recount irrelevant history.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic

“What is worth doing is worth merely beginning. —Mackapee’s Principles for Community”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“Perhaps desire will never be fulfilled. But to live is only worth the effort if you live in hope.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“What a maddening life it is, to be committed to a way of living while also remaining open to all possibilities.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“She dreamed that the kiss had been like flint on steel, and Karis had ignited like tinder.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“The Ashawala'i call that feeling 'being struck by lightning.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“She must heed her intuition without demanding that it serve her and without worrying that it would fail.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“,,Husband", snorted Willis. When Zanja glanced at him curiously, he added, "City folk use it to mean something completely different from what it truly means, and then they call us backwards.These are the same people who let their kin live on the streets, like those beggars out there, rather than keeping them decently clothed and fed."
"Those beggars are smoke sick"; Zanja said.
"All the more reason why they need their families", Willis snapped.
"So what would you call this woman's man?"
"Not her husband", Willis said obstinately. "Where is the household? Where are the other parents for the child? It's just the two of them. That's no family.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“To my students, I say this: one day each of you will be confronted by a decision that requires you to put the needs of the land above your own need to be right. Until you can accept that humiliation, you cannot be a Truthken.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“knowing that if she ceased to trust her prescience it would cease to be trustworthy, fought a dreary battle with self-doubt.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“I was trapped in reality, and when the visionaries told me what was possible, I could not hear them.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“Water magic controls wind, weather, water, time, music, and mathematics.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic

“an insight can arrive long ahead of its usefulness.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic

“It’s not the having that matters to you, am I right? So you can imagine living your whole life beside me, in a state of unfulfilled desire, and that’s acceptable to you because it is desire itself that gives you joy.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic

“No doubt he is a man of principle,' said Kamren. 'But they are the wrong principles.”
― Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic