Top 100 R.L. LaFevers Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “One heart cannot serve two masters.”

— R.L. LaFevers

2. “Why be the sheep when you can be the wolf?”

— R.L. LaFevers

3. “Hate cannot be fought with hate. Evil cannot be conquered by darkness. Only love has the power to conquer them both.”

— R.L. LaFevers

4. “The requirements for covert operations weren’t for the faint-hearted or overly modest, let me tell you.”

— R.L. LaFevers

5. “We are all of us, gods and mortals, made up of many pieces, some of them broken, some of them scarred, but none of them the total sum of who we are.”

— R.L. LaFevers

6. “When one has made as many mistakes as I have, one becomes very familiar with the fullness of God’s grace and mercy.”

— R.L. LaFevers

7. “Impossible things do happen. But only if we make them.”

— R.L. LaFevers

8. “Men of power are unwilling to believe anything ill of their own kind.”

— R.L. LaFevers

9. “I am beginning to think that love itself is never wrong. It is what love can drive people to do that is the problem.”

— R.L. LaFevers

10. “Good intentions are only lies the weak tell themselves.”

— R.L. LaFevers

11. “And just as love has two sides, so too does Death. While Ismae will serve as His mercy, I will not, for that is not how He fashioned me. Every death I have witnessed, every horror I have endured, has forged me to be who I am – Death’s justice.”

— R.L. LaFevers

12. “I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch’s poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.”

— R.L. LaFevers

13. “Whenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours, until Death do us part. Whatever that may mean when consorting with one of Death’s handmaidens.”

— R.L. LaFevers

14. “The pain of hope dying is worse than his fists and boots.”

— R.L. LaFevers

15. “Whenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours...”

— R.L. LaFevers

16. “I am a handmaiden of Death. I walk in His dark shadow and do His bidding. Serving Him is my only purpose in this life...”

— R.L. LaFevers

17. “I blew that clay pigeon to smithereens. I don’t know why Mum got so upset. According to Uncle Andrew she’s a crack shot herself. But she says I’m too young. What I’d like to know is how old does a person have to be before they get to do all the fun stuff?”

— R.L. LaFevers

18. “Are men truly such idiots that they cannot resist two orbs of flesh?”

— R.L. LaFevers

19. “Jewels can be replaced, cousin. Independence, once lost, cannot.”

— R.L. LaFevers

20. “This is what I want to be. An instrument of mercy, not vengeance.”

— R.L. LaFevers

21. “When one consorts with assassins, one must expect to dance along the edge of a knife once or twice.”

— R.L. LaFevers

22. “It is all we have left to us. And while it is more than I ever dared dream, it is nowhere near enough.”

— R.L. LaFevers

23. “There is no shame in scars, Ismae.”

— R.L. LaFevers

24. “Perhaps that is because you mistake death for justice, and they are not the same thing at all.”

— R.L. LaFevers

25. “When he laces his fingers through mine, my heart does its now familiar panicked flight, bumping painfully against my ribs. My shoulder twitches as if to pull my hand back, but my heart overrules it.”

— R.L. LaFevers

26. “He smiles then, and even though it is well past midnight, its as if the sun has just come out.”

— R.L. LaFevers

27. “Every time he glances at me I feel it just as surely as if he has reached out and run his finger along my soul. It is all I can do not to smile at the sheer wonder of it.”

— R.L. LaFevers

28. “In the distance a wolf howls. Let it come, I think. Beast will most likely simply howl back, and the creature will either turn tail and run or fall into line behind him, like the rest of us have.”

— R.L. LaFevers

29. “It is this kindness of his that unsettles me most. I can dodge a blow or block a knife. I am impervious to poison and know a dozen ways to escape a chokehold or garrote wire. But kindness? I do not know how to defend against that.”

— R.L. LaFevers

30. “It is unwise for them to be so very happy, for the gods will feel the need to humble us.”

— R.L. LaFevers

31. “God’s Teeth,? he says. ‘I was only trying to wake you. You were crying out in your sleep.’ ‘I was not,’ I say, then look from his neck to my knife. ‘When I tried to wake you, you stabbed me.’ He sounds sore put out. and I cannot blame him.”

— R.L. LaFevers

32. “And so it is with us; we serve as handmaidens to Death. When we are guided by His will, killing is a sacrament.”

— R.L. LaFevers

33. “I pause at the door, wishing I could find a corner and sleep until my head clears, but the sailor said the abbess is expecting me, and while I do not know much about abbesses, I suspect they are not fond of waiting.”

— R.L. LaFevers

34. “I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Duval ever feels smothered by me, it will be because I am holding a pillow over his face.”

— R.L. LaFevers

35. “The maids in my village talked of falling in love with a man at first sight. That has always seemed naught but foolishness to me. Until I enter Sister Serafina’s workshop. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, full of strange sights and smells, and I tumble headlong into love.”

— R.L. LaFevers

36. “The first book I opened looked promising – Mummies and Their Secrets by Sir Lynn N. Bandage.”

— R.L. LaFevers

37. “I cannot tell her I have been moping over a broken heart when I have worked so hard to convince her I have no heart at all.”

— R.L. LaFevers

38. “You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is a well tempered blade that is the strongest.”

— R.L. LaFevers

39. “I have never been one for putting my faith in odds. I put my faith in higher things.”

— R.L. LaFevers

40. “The body on the ground is nothing more than a shell, a husk, and I am filled with a sense of peace. Yes, I think. Yes. This is what I want to be. An instrument of mercy, not vengeance.”

— R.L. LaFevers

41. “I have found it is surprisingly difficult to remain sad when a cat is doing its level best to sandpaper one’s cheeks.”

— R.L. LaFevers

42. “It is a good thing I no longer have a heart, because if I did, it would surely break.”

— R.L. LaFevers

43. “As far as I can tell, it doesn’t make any difference to adults how clever children are. They always stick together. Unless you are sick or dying or mortally wounded, they will always side with the other adult.”

— R.L. LaFevers

44. “Reluctantly, I headed for the stairs. I wasn’t dawdling. Not exactly. Just giving Father a bit of time to calm down.”

— R.L. LaFevers

45. “I am left with the conviction that an avalanche would be easier to dissuade than that man.”

— R.L. LaFevers

46. “You are not my nursemaid. Remember, I am rescuing you.”

— R.L. LaFevers

47. “I stare at him coldly. “I do not care for needlework.” I pause. “Unless it involves the base of the skull.”

— R.L. LaFevers

48. “Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.”

— R.L. LaFevers

49. “He does not start guiltily, as he should, but frowns in annoyance. “Who are you?” I slip my hand through the slit of my overskirt, and my fingers close around the hard wood of the crossbow tiller. “Vengeance,” I say softly.”

— R.L. LaFevers

50. “It takes a surprising amount of courage to place one’s hand into an unseen area when your mind is thinking about vermin.”

— R.L. LaFevers