Tamora Pierce Quotes

If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us that you wish.

~ Tamora Pierce

Ishabal: If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles? Tris: Because I like them. Because I have better things to do with my magic than fixing my vision when ordinary glass will do.

~ Tamora Pierce

Briar: They never tell you some things. They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don't ever want to learn. Rosethorn: All you can do is learn good to balance the bad. Learn and do all the good within your reach. Then, if you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream.

~ Tamora Pierce

The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.

~ Tamora Pierce

Sandry: There has to be something we can do. Lark: We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix. Sandry: Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.

~ Tamora Pierce

What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people?

~ Tamora Pierce

Well, laddie, if you've let an old buzzard like me hurt you confidence, you couldn't have had much in the first place.

~ Tamora Pierce

I will be known forever as the Puppy who chased a cutpurse and caught fish garbage instead. My descendants will pretend I'm not in their bloodline. No – no one will want to make descendants with me. [from Beka Cooper's journal of her first day as a new Dog i.e. cop]

~ Tamora Pierce

Gran, for the gods' love, it's talk like yours that starts riots! I said keeping my voice down. Will you just put a stopper in it?She looked at me and sighed. Girl, do you ever take a breath and wonder if folk don't put out bait for you? To see if you'll bite? You'll never get a man if you don't relax.My dear old Gran. It's a wonder her children aren't every one of them as mad as priests, if she mangles their wits as she mangles mine.Granny, I told her, this is dead serious. I can't relax, no more than any Dog. I'm not shopping for a man. That's the last thing I need.

~ Tamora Pierce

If you have to hit--hit low.

~ Tamora Pierce

And she told you something about yourself you really ought to know: that you're beautiful, and worth loving.

~ Tamora Pierce

It's harder to heal than it is to kill.

~ Tamora Pierce

I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy.

~ Tamora Pierce

Scummer, pox and wound rot! roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. Gods cursed the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! May every flea, leech and hookworm in all creation find and feast upon them!

~ Tamora Pierce

If I say you're a goatherd's son, you say, 'Yes, Lord Ralon.'Alanna gasped with fury. I'd as soon kiss a pig! Is that what you've been doing-kissing pigs? Or being kissed?

~ Tamora Pierce

Feelings, she learned, were hard to fight. She treasured his smiles and compliments and tried not to dwell on the fact that he gave this things to his friend Kel.His dreamy-eyed gazes, poems, and fits of passionate melancholy were for Uline. It was hard not to resent the older girl.

~ Tamora Pierce

Moral issues rarely have yes or no answers.-Myles to Alanna when she asks about the Gift

~ Tamora Pierce

Just because I'm no jaw clacker doesn't mean there should be a ruction put up whenever I have sommat to say.

~ Tamora Pierce

Alan, you seem to think we won't like you unless you do things just like everyone else. Have you ever thought we might like you because you're different?

~ Tamora Pierce

All these nice clothes, all these jokes and drinks and food, what good does it do? Tomorrow, folk will be poor and starving and dying with a solder's pike in them, and these people will have another celebration, more nice clothes, more jokes, more gems. The suffering is forgotten or ignored - why sorrow? The war victims aren't our people. And then the wheel turns and suddenly they are our people.

~ Tamora Pierce

Daja doesn't exactly need to be tested on whether she's honorable or not. Doesn't she? Don't all of you? This is your first taste of the things which may come from your being powerful mages. People will offer you gold, status, even love. I want to know how you will react. If want to know if your teachers will release greedy, thoughtless monsters into the world.

~ Tamora Pierce

I wish you would thrash him. He deserves it.She looked back at him. I will one day, sir. I'm getting tired of falling down.

~ Tamora Pierce

Corus lay on the southern bank of the Oloron River, towers glinting in the sun. The homes of wealthy men lined the river to the north; tanners, smiths, wainwrights, carpenters, and the poor clustered on the bank to the south. The city was a richly colored tapestry: the Great Gate on Kings-bridge, the maze of the Lower City, the marketplace, the tall houses in the Merchants' and the Gentry's quarters, the gardens of the Temple district, the palace. This last was the city's crown and southern border. Beyond it, the royal forest stretched for leagues. It was not as lovely as Berat nor as colorful as Udayapur, but it was Alanna's place.

~ Tamora Pierce

I would apologize for my rudeness, if I had any manners. Happily, I don't.

~ Tamora Pierce

I said I fell down. Ah. The ground bloodied your nose, split yer lip, and punched ye in th' eye, all at once.I said I don't want to talk about it.

~ Tamora Pierce

You know something? There are sandstorms that strip man and horse and bury them — I've seen them. I saw bones piled higher than my head for the folly of a bad king and those who wanted his throne. I lived through a blizzard that froze every other living creature solid. Against those things, you're only a man. I can deal with you.

~ Tamora Pierce

Lark: You shouldn't yell at

~ Tamora Pierce

We're on a hunt, Cooper. When you're on a hunt, you do whatever it takes.

~ Tamora Pierce

Once she was certain, she didn't waiver. I had to make her stop for water or a bite to eat. She obeyed, but she was restless. As clear as if she spoke to me, she was saying, Very well, I know you want to keep my strength up, but scent fades, you know!And I'd say, I know, girl, but you're what I have and I'm going to take care of you.

~ Tamora Pierce

Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies—they won't understand.

~ Tamora Pierce

Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her? “People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained. “‘And satisfaction brought it back.

~ Tamora Pierce

Cats aren’t special advisers. They advise us all the time, whether we want them to or no.

~ Tamora Pierce

You're more trouble than you're worth. I'm a girl. That's my job.

~ Tamora Pierce

Thus went my first Court Day.I think I'm going to puke.

~ Tamora Pierce

He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.

~ Tamora Pierce

She's all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday.

~ Tamora Pierce

Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male – I hesitate to say ‘man’ – or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?”One of the new women snorted. Others snic

~ Tamora Pierce

You must tell Lady Alanna that sometime. I'd do it from a distance.

~ Tamora Pierce

Stefan spat. Oh, aye, he fell. O' course, Master Ralon helped him fall, several times. Poor li'l tyke didn't have a chance.

~ Tamora Pierce

Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you--and you won't let them do anything for fear you'll be hurt. That's selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?

~ Tamora Pierce