Top 200 Tamora Pierce Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “My new knight mistress is famed for wielding sharp edges: Sword, Knife and Tongue!”

— Tamora Pierce

52. “Dreadful sorry mistress. Ma always said I was too silly to die.”

— Tamora Pierce

53. “Books are still the main yardstick by which I measure true wealth.”

— Tamora Pierce

54. “I come from a dysfunctional family, so my views of parents and parenting used to be highly mixed.”

— Tamora Pierce

55. “Girls are 50% of the population. We deserve to represent 50% of the heroes.”

— Tamora Pierce

56. “Alan, you seem to think we won’t like you unless you do things just like everyone else. Have you ever thought we might like you because you’re different?”

— Tamora Pierce

57. “You’re an obnoxious canker-blossom. Go ooze somewhere else.”

— Tamora Pierce

58. “You can smack some people in the face with a haddock and they’ll still call it a mouse if a mouse is what they want to see.”

— Tamora Pierce

59. “I’m about to commence four years of obeying the cause of a bruiser on a horse. I refuse to put down what might be the last book I see for months.”

— Tamora Pierce

60. “Ozorne, my precious, where are you? – Rikash Moonsword.”

— Tamora Pierce

61. “Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life,” murmured Niko. “They bring new food for shore creatures, and take ships out to sea. They are the ocean’s pulse, and our own heartbeat.”

— Tamora Pierce

62. “Lord Raoul asked me to tell you that if you get yourself killed, he will never speak to you again.”

— Tamora Pierce

63. “Do you know, sire, I think that if we live to tell our grandchildren about this war, they will accuse us of making it up.? -Marielle.”

— Tamora Pierce

64. “If arrogance were shoes, he’d never go barefoot.”

— Tamora Pierce

65. “The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter – learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me!” – The Goddess.”

— Tamora Pierce

66. “So long as there are nobles and commoners, the wealthy and the poor, those with power will be heard, and those without ignored. That’s the world.”

— Tamora Pierce

67. “Have you ever noticed that when you try to deny some part of yourself, things fall out so you need that part more than any other?”

— Tamora Pierce

68. “And if they don’t believe us, I can give them the ghost eyes, you can go all big and threatening, Farmer can do his cracknob simpleton, and my lady can don her nobleness. We’ll do all right.”

— Tamora Pierce

69. “Men don’t think and differently from women – they just make more noise about being able to.”

— Tamora Pierce

70. “As I recall, this word’s use means somewhere there is a tree that is now a – a two-legger. -Numair Salmalin.”

— Tamora Pierce

71. “Sadly for my wedding plans, I learned that Nestor is a bardash. I envy the men who enjoy his favors. He has always treated me with friendship which I now value more than my old romantic feelings.”

— Tamora Pierce

72. “Beneath her calm exterior she wished fiercely that she could pound the meanness out of Joren. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do better to ignore him. Water, she thought, collecting her staff from the shed where it was kept. I am a summer lake on a windless day, clear, cool, and still. Joren is a cloud. All he can do is cast a shadow on my surface. I’ll be here long after he’s gone.”

— Tamora Pierce

73. “I want to marry her, when I grow up to be a man.”

— Tamora Pierce

74. “Money talks and walks, but it does not bark.”

— Tamora Pierce

75. “I wish we had a sign that this flaming dragon is part of an attack or something. Those dung heaps might think it’s just one of their own monsters enjoying the sunrise.”

— Tamora Pierce

76. “Haven’t you ever noticed that people who win say it’s because the gods know they are in the right, but if they lose, it wasn’t the gods who declared them wrong? Their opponent cheated, or their equipment was bad.”

— Tamora Pierce

77. “Scrying the wind is very difficult, Tris,” Niko said gently. “It’s like scrying the future. You’re assailed with thousands of images – fragments, really. It drives many who try it insane.” “You learned to scry the future,” Tris pointed out. “And a number of people have informed me they think I am mad,” Niko replied, his voice very dry.”

— Tamora Pierce

78. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my lord. You are an evil man.”

— Tamora Pierce

79. “Why, I’m just as true and honest as dirt. And I’m even more charming than dirt.”

— Tamora Pierce

80. “I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That’s what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won’t mention you’re crazy.”

— Tamora Pierce

81. “Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?”

— Tamora Pierce

82. “We can’t just act without thinking anymore, Tris. They’ve been trying to teach as that all along. I guess if we’re mages, we can’t exactly be kids, can we? – Sandry after the pirate attack.”

— Tamora Pierce

83. “I swear the sparrows called us ten kinds of idiot when we did it.”

— Tamora Pierce

84. “Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you – and you won’t let them do anything for fear you’ll be hurt. That’s selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?”

— Tamora Pierce

85. “Scummer, pox and wound rot!” roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. “Gods cursed the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! May every flea, leech and hookworm in all creation find and feast upon them!”

— Tamora Pierce

86. “When people say a knight’s job is all glory, I laugh and laugh and laugh. Often I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.”

— Tamora Pierce

87. “Alanna didn’t approve of lying, but in a pinch a lie was sometimes better than the truth.”

— Tamora Pierce

88. “If you have to hit – hit low.”

— Tamora Pierce

89. “You look as scary as a buttered muffin.”

— Tamora Pierce

90. “I respect you heaps, lady knight. I’d’ve thrown myself off a bridge, getting this assignment. You, you’re there with lists and plans. You listen to every flap-mouthed bumpkin who thinks he can do your task better, and you answer with a smile and thanks. Why, you’ve inspired me to be a blessing to my fellow bumpkin, just like you.”

— Tamora Pierce

91. “Just because I’m no jaw clacker doesn’t mean there should be a ruction put up whenever I have sommat to say.”

— Tamora Pierce

92. “We’re just frisking like little captive lambkins.”

— Tamora Pierce

93. “We live in a dark time. Books are as dark as what is available to teenagers through the media every day.”

— Tamora Pierce

94. “Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public,” Vedris always said. “They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies.”

— Tamora Pierce

95. “Alanna: All I know is that I’m to jump when I’m told and I have no free time.”

— Tamora Pierce

96. “Either i’ve turned stupid, or life’s turned hard.”

— Tamora Pierce

97. “Well, no, but everyone says they do.” Someday I must read this scholar Everyone, she thought as she bit her tongue to keep from giving a rude answer. He seems to have written so much – all of it wrong.”

— Tamora Pierce

98. “The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.”

— Tamora Pierce

99. “You pay attention just to words, not how they’re said. Briar’s like you – he talks meaner than he is, and people fall for it. You should know better.”

— Tamora Pierce

100. “Don’t go thinking you can bounce me all over the ground just because I look like somebody’s grandmother,” the woman said dryly. “Some grandchildren need more raising than others, and I supply it,” she grinned, showing very white teeth. – Esa Bell, Shang Wildcat.”

— Tamora Pierce