Juliet Marillier, Daughter of the Forest

"Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt hollow and empty and aching."

"His eyes reflected the open grey of the autumnal sky."

"The man journeyed far, and he heard and saw many strange things on his travels. He learned that - that the friend and the enemy are but two faces of the same self. That the path one believes chosen long since, constant and unchangeable, straight and wide, can alter in an instant. Can branch, and twist and lead the traveler to places far beyond his wildest imaginings. That there are mysteries beyond the mind of mortal man, and that to deny their existence is to spend a life of half-consciousness."

"For the others, it was still just a tale, like all the tales we told, night by night, tales comical and strange, tales heroic and awe-inspiring, the tales that formed the fabric of our spirits."

"You know not, yet, the sort of love that strikes like a lightning bold; that clutches hold of you by the heart, as irrevocably as death; that becomes the lodestar by which you steer the rest of your life."

"You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path."

"Three children lay on the rocks at the water's edge. A dark-haired girl, two boys, slightly older. This image is caught forever in my memory, like some fragile creature preserved in amber."

"All that he had of her was his memory, where he held every moment, every single moment that she had been his. That was all he had, to keep out the loneliness."

"My world was changing, and I was not ready for it."

"There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different."