Top 350 Mary E. Pearson Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “I was afraid of all the lost choices I would never be able to make, and that for the rest of my life someone would always be telling me what to do or say or think, even when I had better ideas of my own. I was afraid of never being anything but what suited others and being pushed and prodded until I fit the mold they shoved me into and I forgot who I was and what I wanted.”

— Mary E. Pearson

202. “I’ll take a game of cards to stitchery any day. My brothers are shrewd, bordering on thieves when it comes to their cards – the best kind of teachers to have. Last.”

— Mary E. Pearson

203. “Do not sacrifice one kind of strength for another.”

— Mary E. Pearson

204. “Doubt was a poison I couldn’t afford to sip.”

— Mary E. Pearson

205. “I hated things being for the best. They never really were. It was a phrase that sugarcoated the leftover crumbs of our options.”

— Mary E. Pearson

206. “What good would one last good-bye do? Wouldn’t it just prolong the pain?”

— Mary E. Pearson

207. “We talked about it. Love. Was that what this was? I love you, Jafir, she would say at any moment of the day, just to hear it said aloud. She would laugh and then say it again, her eyes solemn, looking into mine. I love you, Jafir de Aldrid. And it didn’t matter how many times she said it, I waited for her to say it again.”

— Mary E. Pearson

208. “What is magic but what we don’t yet understand.”

— Mary E. Pearson

209. “The prince has grand dreams.” “Is it worth it to have any other kind?”

— Mary E. Pearson

210. “He consumed me in a different way- the way his eyes made everything jump inside of me when I looked into them, his laughter, temper, the way he sometimes struggled for words, the way his jaw twitched when he was angry, the thoughtful way he listened to me, his incredible restraint and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. When I looked at him, I saw the easygoing farmer he could have been, but I also saw the soldier and prince that he was.”

— Mary E. Pearson

211. “The seed of the gift may come, but a seedling that isn’t nourished dies quickly.”

— Mary E. Pearson

212. “A prince, in the turn of a moment and a few words, was now a king.”

— Mary E. Pearson

213. “The truth circled and gathered her into its arms.”

— Mary E. Pearson

214. “Taking another life, she had whispered, even a guilty one, should never be easy. If it were, we’d be little more than animals.”

— Mary E. Pearson

215. “I wondered if she was truly Rahtan. Yes, she was skilled, but she didn’t exactly possess brawn – even if she had managed to overtake me and slam me up against the wall. But juggling? Riddles? Her age. Her poise and demeanor was that of a cynical tested soldier, but her appearance – she was young, younger than me, I was certain. Her black hair fell in thick, long waves, and her hands were delicate, her fingers more suited for a piano than a sword.”

— Mary E. Pearson

216. “This world, it breathes you in, sniffs, it knows you, and then it breathes you out again, shares you. You’re not contained here in this single place alone. The wind, time, it circles, repeats, teaches, reveals, some swaths cutting deeper than others. The universe knows. The universe has a long memory.”

— Mary E. Pearson

217. “I didn’t think about his world or mine or the future we couldn’t have. I only thought about the warm light behind my eyelids, his soft murmurs in my ear, and the fullness of what we had in that moment. And we touched in all the ways of yesterday and more.”

— Mary E. Pearson

218. “I know what it feels like to have my choices taken away. I pray no daughter of your kingdom will ever have to fight for her voice to be heard as I have had to do.”

— Mary E. Pearson

219. “Some truths refused to be hidden.”

— Mary E. Pearson

220. “The rules of reason build towers that reach past the treetops. The rules of trust build towers that reach past the stars.”

— Mary E. Pearson

221. “Of course you did.” I took a step closer. “You have strengths, Tavish, that I greatly admire. You’re skills helped saved Rafe’s and my lives, for which I’ll always be indebted to you. But there are other kinds of strength too. Quiet, gentle ones that are just as valuable, even if you don’t entirely understand them.”

— Mary E. Pearson

222. “My strengths are not your strengths.”

— Mary E. Pearson

223. “Eyes don’t breath. I know that much. But hers look breathless.”

— Mary E. Pearson

224. “Their voices meld into a cloudy rumble of their own, and I ponder Mira’s and Aidan’s secrets and imagine the injustice that threads through other lives, injustice that has no face because it is hidden away in a dark, shameful place, hidden for years in hopes of making it untrue.”

— Mary E. Pearson

225. “But you’re everything I want. Remember that. I love you, Lia. Not a title. And not because a piece of paper says I should. Because I do.”

— Mary E. Pearson

226. “As we got older, their mischiefs continued to be shrugged off, but mine were not, and I knew from that point that I was measured from a different stick than my brothers.”

— Mary E. Pearson

227. “It doesn’t always take an army to save the world. Sometimes it takes just one person who won’t let evil win.”

— Mary E. Pearson

228. “Could anyone really travel so far that they might not find their way home again?”

— Mary E. Pearson

229. “My anger spiked. I should have stabbed the Komizar again. Carved him up like a holiday goose, then brought his head back skewered on a sword and showed it to the crowds as proof that I had no love for the tyrant.”

— Mary E. Pearson

230. “Desperation grew teeth. Claws. It became an animal inside me that knew no bounds, unspeakable, just as Jafir had tried to explain to me so long ago. It tore open my darkest thoughts, letting them unfurl like black wings.”

— Mary E. Pearson

231. “And I began walking. A thousand miles, or two, I would carry her all the way to Dalbreck if I had to. No one would pry her from my arms again.”

— Mary E. Pearson

232. “Possibility became a winged creature that could take me anywhere I asked.”

— Mary E. Pearson

233. “Killing is different from thinking about killing.”

— Mary E. Pearson

234. “No matter how great a gift or skill, it’s impossible to foresee every outcome.”

— Mary E. Pearson

235. “I knew why he chose the brown. It was the plainest of my dresses, certainly drab in his eyes, but all the better to contrast and showcase the red he’d have me wear tomorrow. I had no doubt he’d ordered the snow itself as the perfect backdrop, and surely he’d ordered the sun to shine in the morning so as not to deter the crowds.”

— Mary E. Pearson

236. “It had been a clever deception from the very beginning.”

— Mary E. Pearson

237. “Pauline frowned. “But you’re not a soldier, Lia. You’re his daughter. You had no choice, and that meant I had no choice. No one should be forced to marry someone they don’t love.” She lay back, gazing up at the stars and wrinkling her nose. “Especially not some old stuffy, puffy prince.” We broke into giggles again, and more than the air I breathed, I was thankful for Pauline.”

— Mary E. Pearson

238. “The angels threw glitter up there, just for you, Zoe, Daddy had told her. They celebrated almost as much as I did the day you were born. Every time you look up there you remember how special you are – so special the angels threw a big party.”

— Mary E. Pearson

239. “Choice is powerful and can lead to great things if not held in the tight fists of a few.”

— Mary E. Pearson

240. “If I had been shipped off to Dalbreck, there are valuable things I never would have learned.”

— Mary E. Pearson

241. “I wondered at the way we all change, all the outside forces that press and mold and push us into people and things we hadn’t planned to be. Maybe it happened so gradually that by the time we noticed, it was too late to be anything else.”

— Mary E. Pearson

242. “You are not letting me go anywhere. Where I go and what I do is still my choice to make.”

— Mary E. Pearson

243. “It is good to have many strengths, Natiya... Do not sacrifice one kind of strength for another.”

— Mary E. Pearson

244. “Even we are guilty of not nurturing gifts, and the gifts that aren’t fed shrivel and die.”

— Mary E. Pearson

245. “The magic of the wishes, of course, was simply in making them, fishing deep for a hidden desire, molding it into words to make it real, and tossing it into a mysterious unknown that you believed was maybe, just maybe, listening.”

— Mary E. Pearson

246. “Deceit knew no boundaries.”

— Mary E. Pearson

247. “Our stories must be passed to our sons and daughters, for with but one generation, history and truth are lost forever.”

— Mary E. Pearson

248. “His death only gave me an ending – it didn’t give back what had been taken.”

— Mary E. Pearson

249. “He was too young to begin losing himself.”

— Mary E. Pearson

250. “He settled into his saddle, then reluctantly looked my way again. “Jafir de Aldrid,” he answered. “And I am – ” “I know who you are. You’re Morrighan.” He galloped off. It was another four years before I saw him again, and the whole of that time, I wondered how he knew my name.”

— Mary E. Pearson