Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

She taught me I should never do anything in private I did not want talked about in public, and cautioned me not to talk in my sleep.

Chronicler shook his head and Bast gave a frustrated sigh. “How about plays? Have you seen The Ghost and the Goosegirl or The Ha’penny King?”Chronicler frowned. “Is that the one where the king sells his...

I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you’re at it?...

are sweet music in a distant room.

It’s a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life....

Think of all the stories you’ve heard, Bast. You have a young boy, the hero. His parents are killed he sets out for vengeance. What next?”Bast hesitated, his expression puzzled. Chronicler answered the question instead....

When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.

Why wasn’t I already kissing this woman? Why wasn’t I naked, eating violets, and playing music underneath the open sky?Looking around the room again, everything seemed terribly ridiculous. These people sitting on their benches wearing...

If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn’t have needed to write a whole novel about it.

The problem with a lot of people who read only literary fiction is that they assume fantasy is just books about orcs and goblins and dragons and wizards and bullshit. And to be fair, a...

The best lies about me are the ones I told.

I understand that if I saw a horse with a leg this badly ‘sprung,’ I’d kill it out of mercy, then burn its poor corpse for fear the local dogs might gnaw on it and...

A Tinker’s Debt is Always Paid:Once for a simple trade.Twice for freely given aid.Thrice for any insult made.

If you fall, you fall,” Elodin shrugged. “Sometimes falling teaches us things too.” In dreams you often fall before you wake.

Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating … but there are other ways to understanding.

Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

She washed he hands,then looked at my side. “you haven’t even had it stitched?” She said incredulously.”I’ve been rather busy,” I said. “With the running like hell and hiding all night.

I was in my early twenties and I was, to be quite honest, a bit of a punk. A swaggering entitled straight white guy who hadn’t but a lot of thought into what it might...

But no. There is a difference between the truth and what we wish were true.

There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.

. . . but this is not a dashing romance. This is no fable where folk come back from the dead. It’s not a rousing epic meant to stir the blood. No.We all know what...

This is how deeply rooted stories are, folks. We crave them before we can walk, and we start telling them before we can talk.

I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can...

What is word for good together living? Nobody shits in the well?”I laughed. “Civilization?”He nodded, splaying his fingers: amusement. “Yes,” he said. “Speaking with hands is civilization.””But smiling is natural,” I protested. “Everyone smiles.””Natural is...

But it isn’t a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns.

«Siempre he preferido las noches sin luna. A oscuras es más fácil hablar. Es más fácil ser uno mismo»—Denna.

So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like...

More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

Auri,” I asked slowly, “are you joking with me?”She looked up and grinned. “Yes I am,” she said proudly. “Isn’t it wonderful?

We know how it ends practically before it starts. That´s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack”.

I am no poet. I do not love words for the sake of words. I love words for what they can accomplish. Similarly, I am no arithmetician. Numbers that speak only of numbers are of...

…If there’s one thing I’m well versed in it’s my own good qualities.

She was not vain enough to work her will against the world. But she could use the things the world had given her.

It’s quite enough to have a secret. Anything more would be greedy.

There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth.”Vashet smiled lazily. “And if the pursuit of the truth was my goal, that would concern me.” She gave a long yawn,...

She took another step. The simple motion of her moving leg was like a dance, the unexaggerated shifting of her hip entrancing as a fire. The arch of her bare foot said more of sex...

Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the...

Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.

When you love something, you have to make sure it loves you back, or you’ll bring about no end of trouble chasing it.

I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me.”She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when...

What? No defense? Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep...

There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to...

Lies are simpler, and most of the time they make better sense.

use.

A woman who goes around wearing a knife is obviously looking for trouble.” She reached deep into her pocket and brought out a long, slender piece of metal, glittering all along one edge. “However a...

The point isn’t to win the game. The point is to play a beautiful game. (paraphrased)

Elodin pointed down the street. “What color is that boy’s shirt?””Blue.””What do you mean by blue? Describe it.”I struggled for a moment, failed. “So blue is a name?””It is a word. Words are pale shadows...

It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.