The collection / 107 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1954 AD

We build up pretty pictures of men, when we want to be in love. We hate to have them ruined.

Tamora Pierce / quote

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02c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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03c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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04c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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05c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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06c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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07c. 1954 AD

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

Tamora Pierce / quote

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08c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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09c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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10c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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11c. 1954 AD

It's always better to attack than to defend," Coram had told her when they talked about fencing late at night. "Always. Ye don't win with defense--ye only hold the other feller off, or wear him down. Attack and have done with it!

Tamora Pierce / quote

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12c. 1954 AD

If you have to hit--hit low.

Tamora Pierce / quote

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13c. 1954 AD

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

Tamora Pierce / quote

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14c. 1954 AD

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

Tamora Pierce / quote

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15c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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16c. 1954 AD

Face it," Gary told her kindly. "You'll never catch up. You just do as much as you can and take the punishments without saying anything. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't what they're really trying to teach us--to take plenty and keep our mouths shut.

Tamora Pierce / quote

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17c. 1954 AD

Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, "Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That's not woman's work.""It's needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself.""I never!" gasped Sarra, indignant."You taught me when you were murdered in your own house," Daine said quietly.

Tamora Pierce / quote

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18c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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19c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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20c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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21c. 1954 AD

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

Tamora Pierce / quote

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22c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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23c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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24c. 1954 AD

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 / quote

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