Jacqueline Carey Quotes

Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?

~ Jacqueline Carey

Love as thou wilt

~ Jacqueline Carey

All knowledge is worth having.

~ Jacqueline Carey

All paths are present, always... and we can but choose among them.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Yes my lord, but questions are dangerous, for they have answers

~ Jacqueline Carey

A little truth seasons a lie like salt.

~ Jacqueline Carey

And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.

~ Jacqueline Carey

It is my observations, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others

~ Jacqueline Carey

This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.

~ Jacqueline Carey

It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.

~ Jacqueline Carey

For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always. These events, so distant in legend, play a part in shaping the very events we witness about us, each and every day.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

~ Jacqueline Carey

If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Wars come and go, politics endure.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Battle for the sake of honor may be a fine thing for bards to sing of, but it is no way to preserve one's homeland

~ Jacqueline Carey

It is a dangerous thing to bring a dream to life....I have watched my deepest, dearest hopes take shape, and I am not entirely sure I like the shape they have taken.

~ Jacqueline Carey

People believe what they are told.

~ Jacqueline Carey

It's the same questions we ask of our existence, and the answer is always the same. The mystery lies not in the question nor the answer, but in the asking and answering themselves, over and over again, and the end is engendered in the beginning.

~ Jacqueline Carey

We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.

~ Jacqueline Carey

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart

~ Jacqueline Carey

The harp sounds at each passing breeze, but that does not mean the tune is masterfully played.

~ Jacqueline Carey

And for a price, I will pretend absolutely nothing.

~ Jacqueline Carey

I had begun to think my ripening body would wither untasted on the vine.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Truly, it is in loss that we learn a thing's true value.

~ Jacqueline Carey

A small kindness, a confluence of compassion, had saved his life. Was that strength, or a weakness?

~ Jacqueline Carey

We might embody those qualities we desire to possess by embracing them, over and over, until the line between seeming and being is no more.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Sidonie, I know you don't remember it, but you once promised to trust me beyond all reason. And I swear to you that all that I am, all that I possess, including this gem-stone, is yours. I need you. I can't do this alone. Forget your memories. Look into your heart. And if you can find somewhere there, some lingering spark of trust that owes naught to reason, I beg you to speak the word written here.

~ Jacqueline Carey

One must gauge one's trust carefully.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking ears will not hear

~ Jacqueline Carey

Well, I was living it, but a shared dream half-lived is a hollow thing

~ Jacqueline Carey

Jehanne said that it would always be like this. That I would always be young and beautiful in her memory, and she in mine. That I would never grow resentful, never be tempted to betray her. That she would never grow restless and fickle, and see to replace me. So you see, not exactly the sentiments of a great and terrible love affair.

~ Jacqueline Carey

There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.

~ Jacqueline Carey

There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong in comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.

~ Jacqueline Carey

There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire

~ Jacqueline Carey

I wondered if, by the time we'd been together as long as Phèdre and Joscelin, I'd be able to predict her reactions. I wasn't sure I would.I wasn't sure I wanted to, either.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade

~ Jacqueline Carey

I lie awake in my bed, clinging to the brightness I have known, fighting back the tide of darkness, the memories of blood and branding and horror, and the legacy of cruelty that runs in my own veins, shaping my own secret vow and wielding it like a brand against the darkness, whispering it to myself, over and over. I will try to be good.

~ Jacqueline Carey

I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.

~ Jacqueline Carey

...not stories, but histories. For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always.

~ Jacqueline Carey

Spontaneity is the province of youth

~ Jacqueline Carey