Tamora Pierce Quotes
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101. “Either i’ve turned stupid, or life’s turned hard.”

— Tamora Pierce

102. “The sands drift always, yet the desert remains the same.”

— Tamora Pierce

103. “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

104. “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

105. “She has teeth like stars and hair like sheep fuzz.”

— Tamora Pierce

106. “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

107. “That’s Lalasa, Kel’s maid. She sews and knows all sorts of ways to hurt you.”

— Tamora Pierce

108. “If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us that you wish.”

— Tamora Pierce

109. “They aren’t expected to understand one another, he replied. The women will learn to flirt over a friend’s shoulder, instead of close. The men will see the women as distant and unknowable. Their friends will be only men. The women will see men as strong and unknowable. Their friends will be only women.”

— Tamora Pierce

110. “She’s all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday.”

— Tamora Pierce

111. “All things change,” she told Alanna frankly. “It does not hurt men to know women have power, too.”

— Tamora Pierce

112. “You’ve been nipping at cook’s wine!!”

— Tamora Pierce

113. “She glared at him. “Why are you forever asking hard questions?” He smiled. “Sooner or later you’ll have to be able to answer one.” Daja shoved him, grinning.”

— Tamora Pierce

114. “All these things Alanna knew from her father’s books and maps, but the reality took her breath away as a paragraph written in a book never could.”

— Tamora Pierce

115. “Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?” Alanna shook her head, smiling a little. In the three years she had been disguised as a boy, she had learned that boys know girls as little as girls know boys. It didn’t make sense – people are people, after all, she thought – but that was how things were.”

— Tamora Pierce

116. “No one asks to live in squalor, Tris. It is just that squalor is all that is left to them by those who have money.”

— Tamora Pierce

117. “He’s just rather more lively than most fossils.”

— Tamora Pierce

118. “Teen problem novels? I can go through them like a box of chocolates. And there are fantasy books out now that need a lot more editing. Fantasy got to be so popular that people began to think ‘We don’t need to be as diligent with the razor blade,’ but they do.”

— Tamora Pierce

119. “It’s a Stormwing,” Ozorne said. “I always wanted one.”

— Tamora Pierce

120. “I did not say I knew swiving well what my spirit called for, and it was not a curst cage!”

— Tamora Pierce

121. “Raoul: Age and treachery! Neal: Youth and skill!”

— Tamora Pierce

122. “You’ve learned to hate. Now you must learn to forgive, or you’ll have enemies at your back forever. He looked my straight in the eyes. That will be hard. The harder the goal, the more important it is, I said.”

— Tamora Pierce

123. “We’re on a hunt, Cooper. When you’re on a hunt, you do whatever it takes.”

— Tamora Pierce

124. “Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short.”

— Tamora Pierce

125. “Cats aren’t special advisers. They advise us all the time, whether we want them to or no.”

— Tamora Pierce

126. “This may be my only chance to see humans before these two are made into fertilizer for Moonwind’s rosebushes.”

— Tamora Pierce

127. “New learning never hurt anybody.”

— Tamora Pierce

128. “Turnstall’s view of what men could and couldn’t do was sometimes odd. Our old parter Goodwin and I agreed that there was no manly or unwomanly, only what you chose to do.”

— Tamora Pierce

129. “If you’ve a story, make sure it’s a whole one, with details close to hand. It’s the difference between a successful lie and getting caught. – From A Workbook for a Young Spy, written and illustrated by Aly’s father and given to her on her sixth birthday.”

— Tamora Pierce

130. “Marriage is for noblewomen with nothing else to do.”

— Tamora Pierce

131. “A friend had commented once that Neal had a gift for making someone want to punch him just for saying hello.”

— Tamora Pierce

132. “He is a horse who will burn and bloat and explode in the sun. Put him back in the oven and let him cook until he’s done.”

— Tamora Pierce

133. “They are sparkly,” Nawat said. “The griffins shed them. I thought if I brought you a present that was made of discarded things, no one would punish you for having them.”

— Tamora Pierce

134. “Anyone who tells you they don’t need to rewrite, they’re usually the ones who need it worst.”

— Tamora Pierce

135. “There is power and there is power, my dear. My power can be vast, in the right places.”

— Tamora Pierce

136. “If thanks was what I wanted,” Sandry replied in the same language, “I would be sad indeed. Since I don’t want it, I won’t miss it.”

— Tamora Pierce

137. “It occurred to Keth for the first time that perhaps magic wasn’t simply a matter of fires, lightning, and power in the air, if spoken words could also create such a transformation.”

— Tamora Pierce

138. “Da says I make a whole loaf from pigeon crumbs.”

— Tamora Pierce

139. “What if custom is wrong? demanded the part of her that believed in the code of chivalry. A knight must set things right.”

— Tamora Pierce

140. “He has never been stripped of his voice, so he does not know how it feels to be stripped of it, even a little.”

— Tamora Pierce

141. “But I’ve only been at this mage business four years. I have some catching up to do –.”

— Tamora Pierce

142. “Knowing to whom she owed the new warmth, Alanna tried to thank Mari Fahrar. The old woman brushed her words aside. “All things change,” she told Alanna frankly. “It does not hurt men to know women have power, too.” Alanna had to laugh. Until Mari and Farda entered her life, she never realized that the tribeswomen viewed their men not with fear but with loving disrespect. Sometimes she felt that she was the one getting the education, not her pupils.”

— Tamora Pierce

143. “I love you,” he whispered. “If you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you.”

— Tamora Pierce

144. “I believe that we haven’t begun to understand the many forces that bind the physical world, any more than we understand our own minds and what they’re capable of.”

— Tamora Pierce

145. “And if wishes were pies, I’d weigh more than I do. Sir Myles of Barony Olau.”

— Tamora Pierce

146. “If we just allowed women and men more leeway in our culture and more acceptance, I think they would be able to make better compromises.”

— Tamora Pierce

147. “Your ma was a leech with bad teeth,” she taunted. Onua laughed in spite of herself. “Your da was a peahen. I know chickens with more brains than you!”

— Tamora Pierce

148. “No more is your master a god, Nobility, but he wants offerings from all. When Black God claims us, who will be punished for giving worship and power to a false god? The prince? Or Banjiku?”

— Tamora Pierce

149. “And she told you something about yourself you really ought to know: that you’re beautiful, and worth loving.”

— Tamora Pierce

150. “Well, label me very impressed and ship me to Carthak!”

— Tamora Pierce