Top 200 Tamora Pierce Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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

102. “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

103. “I will tell the stork-man.”

— Tamora Pierce

104. “Cats must always be cats, even when they are gods, or constellations.”

— Tamora Pierce

105. “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

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

— Tamora Pierce

107. “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

108. “Thus went my first Court Day. I think i’m going to puke.”

— Tamora Pierce

109. “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

110. “I met the oddest little fellow today, Alan of Trebond.”

— Tamora Pierce

111. “Oakbridge did his work with dramatics and prophecies that all would go horribly awry. Having dealt with him over midwinter, Kel wondered why the man hadn’t died of a heart attack. Instead he seemed to thrive on disaster and finding people seated in the wrong places.”

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

116. “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

117. “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

118. “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

119. “And I think Alanna would quote Sean Connery from “The Untouchables” to you: “At the end of your shift, go home alive.” She would say, Don’t think about being brave or working hard – just do what you need to do. When you look back, you’ll be surprised to see that this was exactly enough.”

— Tamora Pierce

120. “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

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

123. “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

124. “When we return – when I have delivered our discovery – I will give you a book to read about a thing called wild magic,” she said drily. “I wouldn’t talk about it in the university. It’s supposed to be an old wives’ tale. Well, I am an old wife. You might be interested, that’s all.”

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

127. “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

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

— Tamora Pierce

129. “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

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

132. “Sweetheart, never listen to what my enemies say. They’re very confused people. I know they are because I’ve spent years making them that way.”

— Tamora Pierce

133. “Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I’m done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense – Reply by Dove to Aly’s silent inquiry.”

— Tamora Pierce

134. “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

135. “Don’t make me regret taking you on. If I get irritated, I might drown you a little bit.”

— Tamora Pierce

136. “New learning never hurt anybody.”

— Tamora Pierce

137. “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

138. “Most humans think the appearance of quiet is quiet. They do not see that sometimes the enemy is as quiet as the serpent. Only when it has stolen all of their eggs will they know bad walks in the quiet as well as the noisy.”

— Tamora Pierce

139. “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

140. “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

141. “People are jackals, always willing to feed off someone else’s kill.”

— Tamora Pierce

142. “He knows about things like betrayal, and being afraid, and the looks on people’s faces when they know you did something they thought impossible.”

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce

148. “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

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

— Tamora Pierce

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

— Tamora Pierce