"How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people--girls, women--went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill."
— Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

"When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?"
— Kristin Cashore

"'I'm not going to wear a red dress,' she said.
'It would look stunning, My Lady,' she called.
She spoke to the bubbles gathered on the surface of the water. "If there's anyone I wish to stun at dinner, I'll hit him in the face.'"
— Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

"Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks and scream if I hear any strange noises. "
— Kristin Cashore

"What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face."
— Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

"Lady Katsa is it?"
"Yes, Lord Prince."
"I've heard you have one eye green as the Middluns grasses, and the other eye blue as the sky."
"Yes, Lord Prince."
"I've heard you can kill a man with the nail of your smallest finger."
SHe smiled. "Yes, Lord Prince."
"Does it make it easier?"
"I don't understand you."
"To have beautiful eyes. Does it lighten the burden of your Grace, to know you have beautiful eyes?" "
— Kristin Cashore

"It was a very hard thing to have crushed the heart, and the hopes, of a friend."
— Kristin Cashore (Fire)

"It's not reasonable to love people who are only going to die," she said.
Nash thought about that for a moment, stroking Small's neck with great deliberation, as if the fate of the Dells depended on that smooth, careful movement.
"I have two responces to that," He said at last. "First, everyone is going to die. Second, love is stupid. It has nothing to do with reason. You love whomever you love. Against all reason I loved my father." He looked at her keenly. "Did you love yours?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He stroked Small's nose. "I love you," he said, "even knowing you'll never have me. And I love my brother, more than I ever realized before you came along. You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do.""
— Kristin Cashore

"Something caught in her throat at this second thanks, when she'd threatened him so brutally. When you're a monster, she thought, you are thanked and praised for not behaving like a monster. She would like to restrain from cruelty and receive no admiration for it."
— Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

"She knew her nature. She would recognize it if she came face-to-face with it. It would be a blue-eyed green-eyed monster, wolflike and snarling. A vicious beast that struck out at friends in uncontrolable anger, a killer that offered itself as a vessel of the king's fury.
But then it was a strange monster, for beneath its exterior it was frightened and sickend by its own violence. It chastised itself for its sacagery. And sometimes it had no heart for violence and rebelled against it utterly.
A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster , did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?
Perhaps she wouldn't recognize her own nature after all."
— Kristin Cashore

"He laughed."I know you"re teAsing me. And you should know I'm not easily humiliated. You mAy hunt for my food, and pound me every time we fight, and protect me when we're attacked, if you like. I'll Thank you for it.""
— Kristin Cashore (Graceling)

"they sat on the outcropping of stone and at bread and fruit. Kasta watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, strucked it in one place than another. It rose and fell again. It flowed, like water.
"Is this what the sea is like?" Kasta asked, and they both tured to her, surprised."does the sea move the way this grass moves?"
“It is like the sea,” she said
Giddon’s eyes on her were incredulous.
“What? Is it such a strange thing to say?”
“It’s a strange thing for you to say.” He shook his head. He gathered their bread and fruit, then rose. “The Lienid fighter is filling your mind with romantic notions.”
"
— Kristin Cashore

"Great! He has indigestion, so let's torture him with cake."
— Kristin Cashore (Fire)

"To Garan's credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. "Best dungeons I ever been in," he said, chewing on a toothpick.

"Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he's gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.""
— Kristin Cashore (Fire)

"It was a very hard thing to have crushed the heart, and the hopes, of a friend."
— Kristin Cashore (Fire)

""Do you understand? I don't want you to do a thing if you don't understand it." --Brocker"
— Kristin Cashore (Fire)