Top 40 Laurie Forest Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Knowledge is never wasted, my dear. No matter how obscure or difficult... or confusing. It always serves to enrich our lives, if we let it, and in ways we can rarely anticipate.”

— Laurie Forest

2. “People see what they expect to see,” he says sharply. “Through a filter of their own hatred and prejudice.”

— Laurie Forest

3. “We’ve both moved through insurmountable odds, and yet here we are, improbably alive. Sipping cocoa.”

— Laurie Forest

4. “Real education doesn’t make your life easy. It complicates things and makes everything messy and disturbing. But the alternative, Elloren Gardner, is to live your life based on injustice and lies.”

— Laurie Forest

5. “Sometimes pushing the wheels of change into motion is the bulk of the battle.”

— Laurie Forest

6. “My grandmother, more than any other woman, was the standard bearer of Gardnerian beauty. Known as “The Black Witch” by our enemies, she was one of the most powerful Gardnerian Mages ever. Intellectually brilliant, artistically gifted, stunningly beautiful and a ruthlessly effective commander of our military forces – she was all of these things. And I don’t just resemble her. I’m her absolute spitting image.”

— Laurie Forest

7. “Forget everything in the whole world and drown in his fire.”

— Laurie Forest

8. “Often you have to fall into the blackness of utter confusion before you can emerge to see even the smallest glimmer of the truth.”

— Laurie Forest

9. “Religion and culture are powerful things.” “More powerful than love?” “If you let them be, I think so.”

— Laurie Forest

10. “The woods are beautiful. They’re my friends, the trees, and I can feel them smiling down at me. I.”

— Laurie Forest

11. “The Gardnerian’s mouth is pressed into a thin, hard line as she deliberates, the ticking of the clock on the wall reverberating in the silence. “I understand your dilemma,” she finally says. She straightens and turns from the window to face Kam Vin. “If the White Wand chooses to leave Elloren Gardner, or if she makes any move to contact the Amazakaran, the Kinh Hoang may strike.” Her eyes narrow, facing the sorceress down.”

— Laurie Forest

12. “But my eyes are quickly drawn away from the wand to her hand. It’s covered with deep, bloody lash marks that continue up her wrist and disappear beneath the sleeve of her cloak. I gasp in horror. “Holy Ancient One, what happened?” Her eyes are briefly filled with despair before they harden again, a bitter smile forming on her mouth. “I did not honor my wandfasting,” she whispers acidly.”

— Laurie Forest

13. “Shane’s hand is grasped around a crystal cup tightly as if he’s trying to decide whom to throw it at. He’s shorter than most of the young soldiers here, but compensates for it with the wiry, athletic build of a fighter – all lean muscle and angry, coiled energy.”

— Laurie Forest

14. “But for me, life would not be worth living without at least having faith in that one thing – that there is another way, a path of justice, if you will. And that there is at least a very small sliver of hope that this path will one day be discovered.”

— Laurie Forest

15. “She holds herself so elegantly straight, I adjust my posture without thinking and hasten my pace to keep up with her. I wonder how she manages to walk so confidently and gracefully in her slim, tall heels, her skirts swishing around her feet. I’d probably fall clear over on shoes like that. My own feet are covered in sturdy boots made for gardening and caring for livestock. I secretly hope I can try feminine shoes like hers.”

— Laurie Forest

16. “May I suggest, Alcippe,” she says, “that if you wish to take revenge upon this girl’s family, the best way to do so would be by letting her live.”

— Laurie Forest

17. “My heartfelt wish is that you read these books and are thrown into a complete tailspin of befuddlement.”

— Laurie Forest

18. “Gareth is a few years older than me at twenty, broad and sturdy with dark green eyes and black hair like the rest of us. But there’s one notable difference: Gareth’s black hair has a trace of silver highlights in it – very unusual in Gardnerians, and read by many as a sign of his less-than-pure blood. It’s been the source of relentless teasing all throughout his life.”

— Laurie Forest

19. “Don’t worry, Fallon,” I say, careful not to look at her, struggling to keep my voice even. “Maybe your tailor can make you another dress. In Gorthan wool. I hear it’s very much the style.” I glance up at Fallon just in time to catch her look of pure, undisguised hostility. Her fist tight on her wand, Fallon stalks out and slams the door behind her. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Sparrow’s mouth twitching into a fleeting grin.”

— Laurie Forest

20. “We don’t get to choose what we are,” she says finally, her voice low. “But we do get to choose who we are.”

— Laurie Forest

21. “Professor Hawkkyn’s star eyes sweep coldly over our side of the room. They catch on me and bore in. Recognition lights, like Bornial flint catching fire. “It seems we have a celebrity amongst us,” he marvels, his mouth tilting with incredulity, his eyes tight on me with unnerving intensity. “The granddaughter of the Black Witch.”

— Laurie Forest

22. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” he asks, his own voice breaking. “To have a mind that strays outside the lines?” I.”

— Laurie Forest

23. “I never want to be pure again.”

— Laurie Forest

24. “Reluctantly, I say my goodbyes to Echo and follow behind Aislinn, trying my best to ignore the Kelt, Yvan Guriel, as he sets his fiery green eyes on me and shoots me a parting, hostile glare.”

— Laurie Forest

25. “Then the air around us goes quiet again, and we rise, trembling, to our feet. My heart lurches as I take in the sight before us. There’s a whole host of dragons in the air now, soldiers astride them as they wing their way north. They’re like a flat, black swarm of mammoth insects, screeching at each other, wings whooshing. The brilliant orange sunset silhouettes their evil forms.”

— Laurie Forest

26. “Against all the odds. You need to hold on to your faith in the good.”

— Laurie Forest

27. “What do you hunt with, then?” I ask. She fixes her wild amber eyes on me. “My teeth.” She smiles widely, displaying her long, white, glistening canines. The hairs on the back of my neck go up in alarm. “Oh,” I say, swallowing nervously. “You mean when you turn into a wolf?” “Not necessarily,” she says, still smiling dangerously. Holy.”

— Laurie Forest

28. “It’s my belief that you have to look past the surface of things to get to the truth of.”

— Laurie Forest

29. “Learn all you can, Elloren, about everything you can. You will find that, when you’re as powerless as we are, it helps to be clever.”

— Laurie Forest

30. “My heart speeds up slightly at the sight of them so close, so intimate, and I suddenly feel worried about my friend. It’s one thing to wish Jarod was Gardnerian in the abstract. But he isn’t. He’s the son of his people’s alpha, and Aislinn’s from one of the most conservative families in Gardneria. Our people hate each other. No, this isn’t good. This is a road best not traveled down – a road leading straight off a cliff.”

— Laurie Forest

31. “I don’t understand your people. You take perfectly natural and normal things and write religious laws that state they’re unnatural. Which is absurd.”

— Laurie Forest

32. “I take a deep, shuddering breath. Kind, foolish Jules. I touch his face. His jutting cheekbone. His infinitely intelligent eyes. “You can’t marry me, Jules,” I tell him, my mouth trembling. “I’m not a Kelt.” His expression turns fierce. “I don’t care! When have I ever cared?” “I will always be Gardnerian.” “Then be Gardnerian,” he stubbornly returns. “We’ll make a life in Verpacia. And when things calm down, we can wandfast if it’s possible. I don’t care. I’d bind myself to you.”

— Laurie Forest

33. “This Yvan Guriel doesn’t even know me, I lament, glaring resentfully at him out of the corner of my eye. He has no right to be so hateful.”

— Laurie Forest

34. “There are assorted side characters, too: the beautiful Gardnerian maidens with their long black hair; wicked Lupine shapeshifters – half-human, half-wolf; green-scaled Snake Elves; and the mysterious Vu Trin sorceresses. They’re characters from the storybooks and songs of my childhood, as familiar to me as the old patchwork quilt that lies on my bed. “Why.”

— Laurie Forest

35. “Don’t ever let other people tell you who you can and can’t love.”

— Laurie Forest

36. “The same way it always happens,” Sylla says, a world-weary sorrow in her eight eyes as she embraces him. “By following a flawed story as if the whole of it is true.”

— Laurie Forest

37. “Always, in the center of everything, Love.”

— Laurie Forest

38. “The future belongs to those who can move past their preconceived, rigid lines.”

— Laurie Forest

39. “And I realize, in that moment, that a heart is a thing not so easily destroyed by the shadows.”

— Laurie Forest

40. “Please, don’t tell me that everything will be all right.” He holds up a hand as she starts to speak. “Because nothing is all right. Nothing in this entire world is all right.”

— Laurie Forest

41. “But I won’t slaughter our enemies’ children. Burn their villages. Do to their families what they did to us. There are orders I will not follow, Tessla.” His brow tenses. “I want our people to be safe. But I refuse to become as monstrous as the Kelts and the Urisk.”

— Laurie Forest

42. “You know, you might try being positive once in a while.” Vale’s eyes flare. “I’m too educated to be positive.”

— Laurie Forest