1
We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]Guy Gavriel Kay
2
My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.Guy Gavriel Kay
3
If this is truly the time that will decide, we have no business refusing people who feel the way we do. No right to decide that they must huddle in their homes waiting to see if they are still slaves or not when the summer ends.Guy Gavriel Kay
4
He had a sense–honed by experience–that what he’d contrived might achieve something of the effect he wanted. That, Martinius had always said, was the best any man in this fallible world could expect. [p. 67]Guy Gavriel Kay
5
Eyyia?" said her husband, and Eliane bet Danel heard the mangling of her name as music." You sound like a marsh frog, " she said, moving to stand before his chair. By the flickering light she saw him smile." Where have you been, " she asked. "My dear. I've needed you so much."" Eyyia, " he tried again, and stood up. His eyes were black hollows. They would always be hollows. He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief. .Guy Gavriel Kay
6
He sang one whole verse directly to her, then, in fidelity to the song, he sent his vision inward to where his purest music was always found, and he looked at no one at all as he sang to Eanna herself, a hymn to names and the naming of things.Guy Gavriel Kay
7
Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul’s journeying.Guy Gavriel Kay
8
[We let] the universality of fantasy, of once upon a time, allow escapist fiction to be more than just that - to also bring us home.Guy Gavriel Kay
9
You have no idea how dearly I wish you were of my blood. My daughter, granddaughter. Will you allow me to take pride in what you are?"-- Sandre to CatrianaGuy Gavriel Kay
10
Reading is a collaboration between the writer and reader. Both parties must keep that in mind when dealing with a work of fiction.”{ Guy Gavriel Kay}Guy Gavriel Kay
11
There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.Guy Gavriel Kay
12
By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.Guy Gavriel Kay
13
What mortal knew the way their fate line would run?Guy Gavriel Kay
14
That felt strange. How sharp a rent a handful of moments made in the fabric of a life.Guy Gavriel Kay
15
Tigana, let my memory ofyou be like a blade in mysoul.Guy Gavriel Kay
16
We cannot know. But sometimes there is kindness, and sometimes there is love.Guy Gavriel Kay
17
When I'm all grown up, come what may, I'll build a boat to carry me awayGuy Gavriel Kay
18
It was different, though, knowing something in your thoughts and then hearing it confirmed, made real, planted in the world like a treeGuy Gavriel Kay
19
I didn't ask to be made a princess." This time all three of them laugh, although it is gentle enough." Who chooses their fate?" It is the third one, the tallest. "Who asks to be born into the times that are theirs?"" Well, who accepts the world only as it comes to them?" she says, too quickly.Guy Gavriel Kay
20
I have been made to realize tonight that there are limits to what I wish to do or see done for any cause.Guy Gavriel Kay
21
No man ever truly possesses a woman, anyhow, " said Gidas moodily. "He has her body for a time if he's lucky, but only the most fleeting glimpse into her soul." Gidas was a poet, or wanted to be.Guy Gavriel Kay
22
The privacy of pride.Guy Gavriel Kay
23
She had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends.Guy Gavriel Kay
24
A hand fought best when it made a fist.Guy Gavriel Kay
25
It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.Guy Gavriel Kay
26
Ambitions and dreams put you at a drinking table with unexpected companions. Cups were filled and refilled, making you drunk with the illusion of changing the world.Guy Gavriel Kay
27
When you didn't say a lot, he thought, you said the important things.Guy Gavriel Kay
28
It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck... Luck was always part of it, one way or anotherGuy Gavriel Kay
29
We are all shaped by where we grow up, though that shaping takes different forms. I don't think there's any doubt that coming of age in Winnipeg both opened my eyes and made me hungry - if I can subvert all claims to be a real writer by mixing metaphors like that.Guy Gavriel Kay