Kel Quotes

“Lord Raoul asked me to tell you that if you get yourself killed, he will never speak to you again.”
― Tamora Pierce

“I suppose he could have changed," Neal said dryly. "I myself have noticed my growing resemblance to a daffodil." The other pages snorted.

Kel eyed her friend. "You do look yellow around the edges," she told him, her face quite serious. "I hadn’t wanted to bring it up."

"We daffodils like to have things brought up," Neal said, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "It reminds us of spring.”
― Tamora Pierce (Page) , Page

“I'm sick of this. Call me what you like, say I'm without honor, I don't care. I'm not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.”
― Tamora Pierce, Squire

“You know, ogres only sound stupid. Most are pretty smart."

"And it's a shallow person who judges anyone by the way they sound. I'm so shallow I'm surprised I don't reflect myself.”
― Tamora Pierce, First Test

“Sir, people never wanted me to make it to squire. They won't like it any better if I become a knight. I doubt I'll ever get to command a force larger than, well, just me.'

Raoul shook his head. 'You're wrong.' As she started to protest, he raised a hand. 'Hear me out. I have some idea of what you've had to bear to get this far, and it won't get easier. But there are larger issues than your fitness for knighthood, issues that involve lives and livelihoods. Attend,' he said, so much like Yayin, one of her Mithran teachers, that Kel had to smile.

'At our level, there are four kids of warrior,' he told Kel. He raised a fist and held up one large finger. 'Heroes, like Alanna the Lioness. Warriors who find dark places and fight in them alone. This is wonderful, but we live in the real world. There aren't many places without any hope or light.'

He raised a second finger. 'We have knights- plain, everyday knights, like your brothers. They patrol their borders and protect their tenants, or they go into troubled areas at the king's command and sort them out. They fight in battles, usually against other knights. A hero will work like an everyday knight for a time- it's expected. And most knights must be clever enough to manage alone.'

Kel nodded.

'We have soldiers,' Raoul continued, raising a third finger. 'Those warriors, including knights, who can manage so long as they're told what to do. These are more common, thank Mithros, and you'll find them in charge of companies in the army, under the eye of a general. Without people who can take orders, we'd be in real trouble.

'Commanders.' He raised his little finger. 'Good ones, people with a knack for it, like, say, the queen, or Buri, or young Dom, they're as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. Commanders size up people's strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone will shine and where they will collapse. Other warriors will obey a true commander because they can tell that the commander knows what he- or she- is doing.' Raoul picked up a quill and toyed with it. 'You've shown flashes of being a commander. I've seen it. So has Qasim, your friend Neal, even Wyldon, though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still-untamed pockets, too curse many hideyholes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the Crown will use you. We're too desperate for good commanders to let one slip away, even a female one. Now, finish that'- he pointed to the slate- 'and you can stop for tonight.”
― Tamora Pierce, Squire

“I've said it before and I'll say it again, my lord. You are an evil man.”
― Tamora Pierce, Squire

“If arrogance were shoes, he'd never go barefoot.”
― Tamora Pierce, Page

“I am the Prince's shield. I am his unbreakable armor. I bleed that he might not bleed. I suffer that he might never suffer. I die that he might live forever.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

“She wanted an extra advantage today, more than she'd had in training with Raoul or knights like Jerel. When the trumpet blared, she told Peachblossom, "Charge."
Muscles bunched under her. The gelding flew at his top speed down the dirt lane, hooves thundering in packed dust. For those brief seconds Kel felt like an army of one. She loved no one so much as her horse.”
― Tamora Pierce, Squire

“But it is said by the sages that he who desires all, loses all.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

“I really don't care that much about retaining the moral high ground.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

“He kept his promises to Conor, but he would break a promise to anyone else for Conor's sake, in a heartbeat.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

“The fact that he had nearly died was not even a stone in the road. It mattered only to him; it had changed no one but him. In that, he was alone.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher

“Conor captured one of Falconet's pieces and chuckled. Kel noted it in the back of his mind, where his awareness of Conor always lived. He wondered if mothers were like this about their children—always knowing where they were, if they were wounded or pleased. He didn't know; he had little experiences of mothers.”
― Cassandra Clare, Sword Catcher