Top 160 Cinda Williams Chima Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

2. “Don’t pick a fight you can’t win.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

3. “But it’s not enough to know right from wrong. You need the strength to do what’s right, even when what you want most in the world is the wrong thing.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

4. “As I said, history is written by the victors. The truth is, the villains were less villainous, and the heroes less heroic, than you’ve been told.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

5. “Falling in love was like falling off a cliff. It felt pretty much like flying until you hit the ground.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

6. “Do not forget duty. But choose love when you can.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

7. “Revenge is a powerful motivation, especially for someone with nothing to lose.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

8. “Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it’s hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

9. “Nobody’s going to hand you anything. You don’t get what you don’t go after.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

10. “Just because you’re the enemy of my enemy don’t mean you’re my friend, Han thought.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

11. “The problem is, hope is the thing that can’t be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It’s a blessing and curse.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

12. “I need to go to parties, Raisa mused, so I don’t think so much.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

13. “Words can hurt, but sometimes it’s the words you never got to say that hurt the most.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

14. “Every time I think I’ve lost everything, I find there’s still something else to lose.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

15. “Crow walked toward her, arms outstretched like a man in a dream, which he was, in a way. Sometimes a dream is enough.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

16. “For Hanalea the Warrior!”

— Cinda Williams Chima

17. “All we can do is make the best decision possible in that moment. Then move on. Because we can’t know how a different choice would play out, it makes no sense to beat ourselves up over what looks like a bad choice in retrospect.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

18. “I’m beginning to realize that revenge is never as satisfying as you think it will be.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

19. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut? I’m calling you Glitterhair from now on. Or Talksalot.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

20. “Surround yourselves with trustworthy people. If you don’t, all the weaponry and tactics in the world can’t save you.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

21. “Knowledge is power. In the wrong hands, knowledge is trouble.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

22. “And it’s not just a matter of you hurting me. I will hurt you too, even if I don’t want to, I’m not the girl you think I am. And you will remember this conversation, and wish that you’d listened to me.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

23. “Sometimes you have to go somewhere else to appreciate what we have here.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

24. “Love is the root of so much suffering and misery, so much loss. It’s the worst thing in the world, to risk yourself by loving someone. At the same time, it’s the best thing in the world – and worth the risk.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

25. “Weird is good, strange is bad.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

26. “I have lost everything, Han thought. Then he corrected himself. Every time I think I’ve lost everything, I find there’s still something else to lose.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

27. “Tears stung her eyes. She sank her knees next to the sleeping bench and gently raked strands of golden hair from him forehead. “Don’t you die. don’t you dare. I forbid it.” As if Han Alister had ever listened to anything she said.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

28. “He’s not lazy. He’s just highly inefficient.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

29. “And, like a fool, she kissed him back. Kissed him a way that would leave no doubt about the way she felt about him. Kissed him because she knew the chances were slim she’d have very many kisses like that in her lifetime. Which is a sad thing when you’re only seventeen.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

30. “Politics is not about justice. It’s about the settling of personal vendettas under a thin veneer of civilization. All politics is personal.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

31. “The answer is no, I would rather marry the Demon King himself than marry you. I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride. And heaven help the one you choose.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

32. “Don’t ask for the truth, boy, unless you’re ready to hear it.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

33. “I like rough edges. That’s what makes a person real.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

34. “She had never felt more alive than when she lay dying in Han Alister’s arms.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

35. “N’exigez pas beaucoup et vous ne serez pas decu. Don’t expect much, and you won’t be disappointed.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

36. “I live in the present because the future is always chancy. When it comes to being with you, I’m willing to take the risk.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

37. “I’ve found it wise to enjoy any time of truce, while recognizing it for what it is. A truce.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

38. “Sometimes a dream is enough.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

39. “Admit nothing – that was his first rule. Appeal to logic – second rule. Delay the inevitable – third rule.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

40. “Strong men do choose strong women, he thought. It’s only the weak that are threatened by them.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

41. “A vocation is not something you slap on, like a coat of paint, and change whenever you want. A vocation is built into you. You have no choice. If you try to do something else, you fail.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

42. “But maybe it’s better to go after something, and not get it, than to not even try.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

43. “Just a rat, she repeated to herself. After all, there were rats in the palace. Human and otherwise. Could be worse.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

44. “I’d rather have a go at life, so there’s something to talk about once we’re gone.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

45. “They were like two pieces of a failed star, drawn together by a shared history and a memory of illicit kisses.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

46. “It was one of the warm nights at the end of summer that makes promises that won’t be kept.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

47. “There’s something about a roof isn’t there? It makes you feel like it doesn’t matter what’s going on below. All of those things that get in the way of your dreams – you’re above them. Anything is possible.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

48. “That’s what makes us human. Feeling things–even pain. That’s what music does, if it’s any good: it makes you feel things. You listen to a song, and somehow you know what that person was going through when he wrote it. Or maybe it puts a name to what you’re feeling. And because you can share that, you don’t feel so alone.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

49. “Plus he was naturally lucky at cards. As Mam had always said, lucky at cards, or lucky at life. One or the other. Not both.”

— Cinda Williams Chima

50. “Did the destruction of one dream leave a vacuum that required filling with another? Is a broken heart more vulnerable?”

— Cinda Williams Chima