Quotables

A collection of noteworthy quotes from the World of the Five Gods.

The Curse of Chalion

• Couldn't you give me a fortress under siege instead? - Lupe dy Cazaril on being offered secretary-tutor job for Iselle dy Chalion
• The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business. - Ista dy Chalion
• The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistakes, as if my maidenhood were responsible for my ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid. - Iselle dy Chalion
• This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods. Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same. - Lupe dy Cazaril
• A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He—or she—freely gives the gift of their will to their god. And in renouncing action, makes action possible. - Saint Umegat
• The gods do not grant miracles for our purposes, but for theirs. If you are become their tool, it is for a greater reason, an urgent reason. But you are the tool. You are not the work.  - Saint Umegat
• You cannot outguess the gods. Hold to virtue—if you can identify it—and trust that the duty set before you is the duty desired of you. And that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service. Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life. - Umegat
• I don’t duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. - Lupe dy Cazaril
• Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I'd always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at ease before his own hearth. - Royse Bergon to Cazaril
• Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure. - Lupe dy Cazaril
• I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my father, who is a prudent, cautious man, always looking for men's hidden, selfish motivations. No one can cheat him. But I've seen him cheat himself. If you understand what I mean. - Royse Bergon
• Knowing what I know now...it would be harder. But I would hope... I would pray, Royse, that the gods would still lend me such foolishness in my need." "What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father's gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool, too, Caz? - Lupe dy Cazaril
• Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view? - Umegat
• I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was. - Betriz dy Ferrej
• When the souls rise up in glory, yours shall not be shunned nor sundered, but shall be the prize of the gods' gardens. Even your darkness shall be treasured then, and all your pain made holy. - Lupe dy Cazaril
• I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name. - Lupe dy Cazaril
• Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same. - Lupe dy Cazaril

Paladin of Souls

• Anyone who desires to see the gods face-to-face is a great fool. - Ista dy Chalion
• And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. - Chivar dy Cabon
• A stunning first impression was not the same as love at first sight, but it was certainly an invitation to consider the matter. - Ista dy Chalion regarding Arhys dy Lutez
• Lord Bastard, you bastard. - how Ista dy Chalion addresses her god
• Poets speak of hope in ladies smiles, but give me a smirk any day, I say. - Illvin dy Arbanos
• When the man arises who can make you laugh, solemn Ista, angry Ista, iron Ista, then will your heart be healed. You have not prayed for this: it’s a guerdon even the gods cannot give you. We are limited to such simples as redemption from your sins. - Bastard of the unseason
• Arhys would have protected you from this choice, as a father would a beloved child. Arhys is wrong in this. I give you a woman's choice, here, at the last gasp. He looks to spare you pain this one night. I look to your nights for the next twenty years. There is neither right nor wrong in this, precisely. But the time to amend all choices runs out like Porifors's water. - Ista dy Chalion
• So I pray may the gods hear even me, and let my whispered yes tower above my shouted no and mount all the way to their fivefold realm. As I would be heard, so I hear you. - Ista regarding Cattilara's whispered agreement to help Arhys on his final ride
• I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right. // You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her. // It is imperfect. // So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista. - Ista dy Chalion and the Bastard

• Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. - Ista dy Chalion
• The gods did not desire flawless souls, but great ones. I think that very darkness is where the greatness grows from, as flowers from the soil. I am not sure, in fact, if greatness can bloom without it. - Ista dy Chalion

The Hallowed Hunt

• It is as much an error to take truth for lies, as lies for truth. - Ingrey kin Wolfcliff
• If this multiplication of hypothetical sorcerors goes on, we shall have to hang them from the rafters like hams to make room. - Ingrey kin Wolfcliff in response to Wencel kin Horseriver's theorizing
• Burning alive is a most painful death. I do not recommend it. - Wencel kin Horseriver as a connoisseur of death.
• Signs of the Bastard's holy presence tend to be unmistakable, to those who know Him. The screaming, the altercations, the people running in circles - all that was lacking was something bursting into flame, and I was not entirely sure for a moment you weren't going to provide that as well. - Learned Lewko
• But have you ever overheard two women discussing men? Men are crude liars, comparing their drabs, but women - I'd rather have [an] anatomist dissect me alive than to listen to the things the ladies say about us when they think they are alone. - Rider Gesca
• I had never had a direct experience of the holy in my life, for all that I tried to serve my god as seemed best to me, according to my gifts as we are taught. Except for Hallana. She was the only miracle that ever happened to me. The woman seems vastly oversupplied with gods. At one point, I accused her of having stolen my share, and she accused me of marrying her solely to sustain a proper average. The gods walk through her dreams as though strolling in a garden. I just have dreams of running lost through my old seminary, with no clothes, late for an examination of a class I did not know I had, and the like.  - Divine Oswin
• The Son held up his hands. Luminescent, they seemed, as if dappled by autumn sun reflecting off a stream into shade. "My grace flows from me as a river, wolf-lord. Would you have me dole it out in the exact measure that men earn, as from an apothecary's dropper? Would you stand in pure water to your waist, and administer it by the scant spoon to men dying of thirst on a parched shore?" - Son of Autumn

Penric's Demon

• It indicates a deep confusion of thinking to mistake one’s own discomfort for a benefit to another. - Desdemona