Top 100 Susan Dennard Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “No rage, no hate, no love, no past. Just now.”

— Susan Dennard

2. “This was my true path. One without structure, without Sight or guarantee or anyone at my side to help me forge ahead. Yet I knew what mattered most, and I would do whatever it took to get there.”

— Susan Dennard

3. “Is that what you think I am? All this time, and you still haven’t sorted it out? Why am I surprised? You didn’t notice me when we were on the Jana. You couldn’t even remember my name back then, so why should I expect you to understand – to see me for what I am now!”

— Susan Dennard

4. “We value things more when we know they won’t last forever.”

— Susan Dennard

5. “There are degrees of freedom. Complete freedom isn’t always good, nor is the lack of it always bad.”

— Susan Dennard

6. “Stasis. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes.”

— Susan Dennard

7. “That’s why we’re called the Luminaries, Winnie: we are lanterns the forest can never snuff out.”

— Susan Dennard

8. “I trust you as if my soul were yours.”

— Susan Dennard

9. “Oh, the Bloodwitch named Aeduan was no longer bored. No longer bored at all. And now he had work to do.”

— Susan Dennard

10. “I’ll strip with you,” Safi offered, grabbing for her shirttails. “If anyone shows up” – the shirt slid over her face, muffled her words – “I’ll dance around and distract them.”

— Susan Dennard

11. “Sometimes justice was all about the small victories.”

— Susan Dennard

12. “Stasis, Iseult det Midenzi told herself for the thousandth time since dawn. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes.”

— Susan Dennard

13. “Though we are safe with our friends near, we are safest with our enemies nearer.”

— Susan Dennard

14. “There was pain too, though Aeduan could ignore that. After all, pain was nothing new.”

— Susan Dennard

15. “And if they underestimate you, then you’re the one with all the power.”

— Susan Dennard

16. “But the cleaving Tidewitch didn’t care. His blackened eyes had latched on to Safi now. His bloodstained hands clawed up and he barreled toward her like a squall.”

— Susan Dennard

17. “There were advantages to being a dead man.”

— Susan Dennard

18. “Because,” Evrane said, “those who win wars are those who write history.”

— Susan Dennard

19. “History might easily be rewritten, but someone somewhere always remembers what truly happened.”

— Susan Dennard

20. “Yet only in death, could they understand life. And only in life, will they change the world.”

— Susan Dennard

21. “Iron might weep, but it did not break.”

— Susan Dennard

22. “Who the rut is that Nubrevnan Windwitch? And: He should really learn how to button a shirt.”

— Susan Dennard

23. “It was the circle of perfect motion. Of the light-bringer and dark-giver, the world-starter and shadow-ender. Of initiation and completion. It was the symbol of the Cahr Awen. Cahr Awen.”

— Susan Dennard

24. “There are degrees of everything, which doesn’t fit well into your true-or-false view of the world.”

— Susan Dennard

25. “Shut the door,” he ordered. Safi did, but tensed her muscles. She might have danced and fought with this man, but that didn’t mean she trusted him in a room alone.”

— Susan Dennard

26. “From the day she had stabbed Aeduan in the heart, that heart had become hers – and she would not let this be his end.”

— Susan Dennard

27. “This girl had fought Aeduan – tricked him and broken his spine. She had battled city guards and faced cleaved Poisonwitches head-on, yet never had Aeduan seen her show fear.”

— Susan Dennard

28. “No stopping, though. Only running onward through the weak rain. Men charged with blades, but swords were so easy for Iseult to evade with Aeduan at her side. Together, they arced, they lunged, they ducked, they rolled. A fluid combination of steps built on blood and Threads.”

— Susan Dennard

29. “He was caught, like the man from the tale who wanted to feed his family during a blizzard, but could not bear to kill the lamb. In the end, everyone died of starvation, including the lamb. For Lady Fate makes all men choose eventually. Even Bloodwitches.”

— Susan Dennard

30. “Most people wanted to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that.”

— Susan Dennard

31. “Aeduan bundled her up and stood. She was so light, so fragile. A bird in his demon arms.”

— Susan Dennard

32. “You’re chained up.” A wince pulled at Safi’s eyes. “I upset the Admiral.” “Of course you did.” “It’s not funny.”

— Susan Dennard

33. “You think you’re so selfless, you think you’re working to save everyone, but what if you’re going about it all wrong? At least when I live as a boy, no one gets hurt. But you pretendin’ to be a martyr? Pretending to be the Fury? That hurts everyone.”

— Susan Dennard

34. “If you wanted to, Safiya, you could bend and shape the world.”

— Susan Dennard

35. “Safi was beyond anger. Beyond temper. This was her life now – forever running, forever changing hands from one enemy to the next until eventually the enemy severed her neck. It had been inevitable, really. Her magic had cursed her from the day she was born.”

— Susan Dennard

36. “Aeduan didn’t contradict her. She was what she was, and fighting one’s nature only brought pain. Sometimes death too.”

— Susan Dennard

37. “She was broken. She was useless. She was the pointless half of a friendship. The one who would live forever in shadows, no matter what she did. No matter whom she fought.”

— Susan Dennard

38. “If Iseult were here, then Safi could charge off into that jungle without a second thought. With Iseult, Safi was brave. She was strong. She was fearless.”

— Susan Dennard

39. “Merik turned away, pretending not to hear. Not to care. But the truth was, he did hear and he did care.”

— Susan Dennard

40. “I can feel their Threads waiting.”

— Susan Dennard

41. “Before Nubrevna, it had been Dalmotti. Before Dalmotti, it had been Marstok. For centuries, this peninsula had changed hands, and for centuries, no one had ever fully won – or ever fully lost.”

— Susan Dennard

42. “It was time to make amends. Time to bring justice to the wronged. Time to bring punishment to the wicked.”

— Susan Dennard

43. “Until at last, they could pause and let the arrows fall harmlessly around them.”

— Susan Dennard

44. “The bond forms from respect and shared experience, and though attraction can sometimes play its part, it is not necessary. Love is love and is the most powerful connection we humans have.”

— Susan Dennard

45. “He was a Bloodwitch no longer. He was a monk no longer. He was man, just a man. It would have to be enough.”

— Susan Dennard

46. “Contrary to what your teacher might suggest,” I declare, “it is perfectly all right to be strange. For ever after, you will be glad you did what you wanted instead of what everyone else expected.”

— Susan Dennard

47. “After tonight, Safiya fon Hasstrel would be free.”

— Susan Dennard

48. “Plague?” the guard interrupted.”

— Susan Dennard

49. “And do all Hell-Bards waddle like a duck, or is it just you?”

— Susan Dennard

50. “To pile on the agony, once we reached Shantytown-a collection of shacks around the Exhibition that fed off the scraps of rich tourists – the ribbon on my bonnet decided today was the day it wanted freedom. It dangled before my face in a taunting display of rebellion.”

— Susan Dennard