Kate Elliott > Quotes

“I will either find a way, or make one.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“A kiss can be like the world turning over. It can be like the tide of a dragon's dream washing through the unseen world that is hidden to mortal eyes but that nevertheless permeates our being. It can be hot and cold together, as vast as the heavens and yet specific to the pressure of hands and the parting of lips. It raised more intense feelings than I had expected, like being engulfed in a storm of lightning.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“...because when beauty awes you, you must halt and try to catch your breath and your staggered heart.”
― Kate Elliott, Shadow Gate

“Male or female, what did it matter, really, when the body yearned?”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Fire

“I lifted my chin. "All right then. You are always very precise when it comes to magic. So I've observed. And really, really don't like to get things wrong. So when you saw there were two young women, that day you came to this house, why did you not even ask about my cousin?"
His crooked smile made my heart turn over. "All right, then. I'll tell you." He paused as if gathering courage, before he forged on. "When I saw you coming down the stairs that evening, it was if I were seeing the other half of my soul descending to greet me.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“Luck is only my lover, not my wife," replied Bahktiaan easily. He drew his saber. "If ever I wed, it will be skill and intelligence."

"Tedious bedfellows," said Sergi.”
― Kate Elliott, Jaran

“If we prosper only through the suffering or death of another, then that is not prosperity.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“...anyone can make a desert and call it peace...”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“Listen, my father had written. Listen to hear if they are telling the truth or only part of the truth, for that is the lesson of history: that the victors tell the tale of their triumph in a manner to grant accolades to themselves and heap blame upon their rivals. Ask yourself if part of the story is being withheld by design or ignorance.”
― Kate Elliott

“A strong man does not need a silent wife.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“The young who are male can never resist showing off their knowledge, no doubt because they possess so little.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“I have to believe he will do as he promised. Yet the truth is that I trust him because of the way he snared my fingers in his. That is the worst reason of all to trust, but my bitter heart will not stop singing its recklessly giddy song.”
― Kate Elliott, Court of Fives

“Reason is the measure of all things.”
― Kate Elliott

“What is freedom?" he asked bitterly, "and who is truly free? We are all bound by what we are, and where we come from."
"Maybe," I said slowly as I considered the turn my life had taken, the lies I had been told, "because we do not look farther than where we have been told to look. Perhaps it would all be different if we weren't afraid of what we are. Or what we might become.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Fire

“It's the ones who can't let go - of fear or anger, lust or greed, vanity or pride or power - who are most at risk of becoming corrupted.”
― Kate Elliott, Traitors' Gate

“We make ourselves into the net that we throw across the ocean”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“Annoyance and pathos warred in my breast, and after a short struggle, annoyance punched pathos in the snout like the voracious shark it was.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“When you have a full and eager heart in you, you must not go to a man whose heart is empty and weak.”
― Kate Elliott, Jaran

“There’s little enough joy, and far too much pain, in a world like this not to appreciate the beauty that comes your way. He”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But in the midst of the monstrous assembly that is slave to fortune, each solitary small figure who linked her hand to another built a chain of loyalty and trust.

We make ourselves into the net that we throw across the ocean.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“It is not in Victory that you learn how strong you truly are.
- Stronghand”
― Kate Elliott, Prince of Dogs

“A man gets used to riding on at the break of day. Comes to think that movement and noise is where life is, when after all there's life in stillness and quiet too.”
― Kate Elliott, Traitors' Gate

“The history of the world begins with a seed. The seed is the kernel of what you are, but it is also the promise of what you can become.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“They say that your eyes contain fire, that your face fills with light.”
― Kate Elliot

“I had not realized how much anger I held against my heart for all the people who use others as nothing more than tools to build a house for themselves, who wrap chains around others and then claim they have the right and even the obligation to do so.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel

“I believe that there is truth to be found inside every person, but that very few people find it because it is dark inside, and deeply hidden, and the trees grow thickly.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“It is a sad truth, but one acknowledged by any person who can bother to read the law, that the inferior legal status of a woman in Europa means she is best protected by having a powerful family or, lacking that, by finding the strongest protector and marrying him.”
― Kate Elliott, The Secret Journal of Beatrice Hassi Barahal

“All people are bound by ties and obligations, and the most binding ties of all are those between kin.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Magic

“We are bound to our ancestors and to those who made us, whether we want to be or not. What matters is what we make of what we are.”
― Kate Elliott, Cold Steel