Karen Lord

"His mother had been the daughter of a minor chief, and she had carefully instilled in Ansige an understanding of the importance of importance."

"Ansige’s outer appearance could be deceptive, but, given enough time, he let everyone know who and what he was."

"Ansige unreeled the tale of his tribulations, thoroughly ransacking the truth and then dipping into the bag of embellishment and sprinkling with a free hand."

"Chaos was a far subtler force than most people realised. It would be so easy to sense if it threw off thunderbolts or sent barely sensed thrummings through the fabric of reality, but it was nothing more than the possible made probable. It did not break or bend any laws of nature or tip the balance of the universe."

"That was the nature of chaos; its effects spanned time in ways that were not always immediately discernible, not even by beings outside of time."

"Besides, for poets it wasn’t lying, it was art."

"Women fell into that category of fantasies and dreams that worked well when unfulfilled but presented all kinds of problems when brought out into the real world of trial and failure."

"Paama sat up slowly, moving as cautiously as if facing a lion who had just declared his intention not to pounce, but to have a friendly chat instead."

"“Never?” he said, dismayed. “Never,” she reiterated firmly. He nodded, pretending to be resigned, but secretly he thought that there were always ways to get around “never.”"

"It was a common characteristic among the warriors—no fear of death, and only pride for their scars, but little thought of all that could happen in between those two extremes."

"Let me tell you, I have seen men who are trying to find themselves, and I have seen men who are trying to lose themselves, but rare indeed is the man who knows exactly who he is and where he is at."

"Getting information out of them was like extracting gold from ore—a lot of labour and time, and why bother to do it when you know there’s a store just around the corner?"

"And stop thinking you’re the superior ones! You’re just another drop in our gene pool! We’re all descended from peoples who thought they were kings and gods and who found themselves to be almost nothing at all in the end. Don’t let that be you."

"One of the advantages of having languages as a hobby is that it can take you quite a while to run out of swear words."

"The ability to know another’s mind does not preclude the likelihood of misunderstanding it."

"Blood is blood, you know? There’s too much shared history and too many cross-connecting bonds to ever totally extract yourself from that half-smothering, half-supporting, muddled net called family."

"I don’t want easy. I want true."

"“Ever wonder if you’ve done the right thing?” I asked him finally. “Frequently,” he replied. “Legalities notwithstanding, to not wonder indicates a dangerous lack of awareness of the nearly infinite array of choices presented by life.”"

"What you describe as the product of a mental imbalance, I would classify as swift, intuitive thinking to arrive at creative solutions."