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“I was running from my own thoughts as much as anything. I simply wanted to untangle myself from the web I had touched. A single, sticky, quivering strand of it was all I needed to warn me away. I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.”

“Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.”

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.”

“Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.”

“Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”

“The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there”

“Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.”

“When you put your hands and mind and heart into the knowing of a thing… there is no room in you for fear.”

“Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

“Love and anger are like land and sea: They meet at many different places.”

“It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.”

“There are no simple words. I don't know why I thought I could hide anything behind language.”

“I could not find my way back in dreams, I knew then. They were memory and desire, terror and hope; they told me only what I already knew.”

“Water has its moods, flowing or still; it can lure you like a lover, or look as bleak as a broken heart.”

“I didn’t know anymore what love meant, or why we were not all better off without it.”

“She lies like the moon lies, a different face every night, all but one of them false, and the one true face as barren and hard as stone. Why do you believe her?”

“Men see what they are most afraid of.”

“The small red eyes regarded him, unblinking. “What would you give me for all the wisdom of the world?”
“Nothing.” He turned back to his work. “I have heard you know the answers to every riddle save one. That will be the one I need answering.””

““You fought for your freedom and won a different kind of prison. I will fight for mine—”
“You can’t fight me,” Tearle reminded him harshly.
“I know.” In the placid light, his face looked chilled and very weary. “But I can die.””

“What concern of mine are your affairs? Or Coren’s? What kind of peace would there be in me or in my house if I took interest in the wars and feuds that you weave in the courts below? I do not understand such things. I understand only what lies within my walls.”

“Love is what we say it is,” she said fiercely. “That’s all I know. That’s all anyone knows about it. I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps there had never been anything at all to see.”

“Do you care for me at all? Or do you only need me?”

“The Riddle Master himself lost the key to his own riddles one day,” he said in his deep, reed-pure voice, “and he found it again at the bottom of his heart.”

“Wisdom never learned silence, and it is most annoying when least wanted.”

“He was silent a moment, struggling. He said finally, “But you had a right to be angry.”
“Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.””

“But, Corbet, there were things—between us—”
“You imagined many of them. You wanted them to be true, and so they were. But only to you.”

“He kissed her anyway, lightly on the cheek, before she turned to get her coat, thinking how long he had known her and how little he knew her and how little he knew of how much or little there was in her to know.”

“I do not want to choose which one of you I must love or hate. Here, I am free to do neither. I want no part of your bitterness.”