The Novels of the Jaran Quotes

“There’s little enough joy, and far too much pain, in a world like this not to appreciate the beauty that comes your way. He”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“I believe that there is truth to be found inside every person, but that very few people find it because it is dark inside, and deeply hidden, and the trees grow thickly.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“She felt as if she were someone else, watching through her eyes.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But in life, every moment can be said to be critical; all is revealed and concealed, created, maintained, and destroyed in the great dance of time.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Yana,” he said gravely, “you must learn the basic lesson that those who have power will use it, and those who don’t must learn to control those who do. You”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Ilya, what do you want?” His smile vanished. When he contemplated his vision, his gaze narrowed until Tess could almost imagine it as a single beam, piercing to the heart of the universe, capable of vaporizing any object that stood in its path. “The world.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“That is true. But nevertheless, you are like the prisoners in the cave, your legs and necks shackled by your maps and your walls so that all you can see is the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave. You think they are the truth, but they are only a shadow of the truth, which lies—” He gestured to the sky and the plain and the distant spiral curl that was the growing city of Sarai. “—out here, under the gaze of the sun and the moon and the stars.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“First and foremost, any great empire thrives on movement: stable lines of supply, of trade, of information. This movement must be unobstructed for officials on imperial business, and monitored and restricted for others on a scale that varied depending on the necessity of these functions to imperial strength and the likelihood of such restrictions causing dangerous levels of dissent.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But aren’t all of us like a fine weaving? The pattern the world sees often hides the threads.” Tess”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“When by the power of the heavens the whole world from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun shall be at one in peace, then so shall we all be at peace. You may believe that your country is far away, but not so far away that we cannot ride there. You may believe that your mountains are high beyond measure, but not so high that we cannot cross them. You may believe that the seas are vast, but not so broad that our ships cannot sail them. The gods who live in the heavens will make what was difficult easy, and what was far away, near.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“There’s an old saying: ‘be careful what you wish for; you might get it.’” “Oh, gods.” A quaver shook Ilya’s voice. “The bargains we make with the gods never fall out as we think they will.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Why is it that you and I suppose that if we want something, it must come to pass?” Charles’s lips quirked up into a smile so colored by grief that it felt almost as if other people had been brought by that tiny expression into the hushed solitude of the chamber. “There’s an old saying: ‘be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Sometimes, when you wished too hard for something, you paid a bitter price.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“The problem with meddling,” said Charles under his breath, “is that for every problem you solve, you create two more.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“When acquaintances embrace, one can read the gap between them. When friends, when siblings embrace, no matter how close, there is still an infinitesimal distance, like a layer of molecules, separating them. When a mother hugs her child, they meet. But when lovers embrace, they don’t just meet but join. Tess”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“And once you saw the world from three, or five, different roads, the view was never the same. The map changed and altered, and its details became more accurate. The landmarks receded or grew, depending on the angle from which you observed them, and at once, there might be an escarpment from which the astonished traveler would rendezvous with her selves and could suddenly comprehend the land as it truly was.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Coming onstage for her first entrance, Diana felt transported to some ancient scene. They could have been any group of itinerant actors out making their way along the Silk Road, the famous Earth trade route that ran across the mountains and deserts and steppes of Asia, stopping in this medieval oriental city made glorious by its marble colonnades and gentle silk banners. Even”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“I meant that in politics there may be times when it’s expedient to leave someone in power who’s become incompetent, because in a web like that, there are ways to circumvent the damage that person might do. But”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Hyacinth, we all have our limits. I can’t save the world. I can’t stop this war. Maybe, just maybe, I can communicate a few things through art.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“He, who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self offenses weighing. Shame to him whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking!”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“If we stay as we have been, then we will die, just as a pool dries up in the summer if there is no rain. We must change if we want to live. But we must also remain who we are and who the gods gifted us to be.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“You’re not afraid to take risks.” “Neither are you, Diana. Don’t ever lose that quality. Once a person stops pushing and growing, she is as dead in the spirit as if she were dead in the flesh.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Was it not Democritus of your own country who said, ‘Well-ordered behavior consists in obedience to the law, the ruler, and the woman wiser than oneself’? Although in the text I read the words were written as, ‘the man wiser,’ but I can only suppose the scribe wrote the word wrong or meant it to be ‘Elder.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“I don’t know,” said Diana. “I gave up a long time ago trying to decide whether we’re ever ourselves or are only playing roles. And who could tell which the role was, the passionate kisser or the ruthless conqueror? Maybe they both are roles. Or maybe they’re both true. Can’t two contradictory things exist inside one person?”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But you will die in any case, Ilyakoria. What good is everlasting fame to a man if he dies unloved?”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But the plains do not continue forever, just as happiness and sorrow both eventually come to an end. Their first hint of the highlands was a rough stretch of land pitted with gorges and rugged valleys that were barren of cover and composed of rock as stubborn and sharp and unyielding as a saint. The jaran playfully called it krinye-tom, the little mountains; Tess called it hell and wondered what the big mountains were like.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“There are no chances.” He favored her again with that unreadable look. “You succeed or you fail. Battles are not won by men who refuse to take risks.” It”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“Most things are possible, if one decides they are.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“He laughed. “But I love to ride, just as—as fire loves to burn. I love to see the mountains in the winter, the sea and the northern hills in the summer. Would you live forever in one place, never seeing another?”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran

“But if the gods only cursed us, then we would hate them. And if they only blessed us, then—well, then we’d care nothing for their laws because we’d respect nothing but our own pleasure.”
― Kate Elliott, The Novels of the Jaran