The Queens of Innis Lear Quotes

“Sometimes we forgive others because it keeps our own hearts whole, not because they deserve it or for any thought of them.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I don't want to be chosen above all things, one thing most of all. I want to be a part of someone's whole.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“We are as strong as the people who love us.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I won't love anyone so much more than everything else that I lose it all if that person is lost. If it makes your world smaller, it isn't love.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I will be air, and I will be rain, and I will be dust, and I will be free.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I do not allow stars or prophecies to dictate my choices.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Rain is not always a storm. The wind does not always howl. Sometimes death is quite, or love is peaceful. There are little things.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“No one thing keeps Innis Lear alive or its heart beating! That is not love! That is selfishness. That is pretending we are all only one thing. Only a star, only a woman, only a bastard. You're more than that, and I am, too: a woman and daughter of a foreign queen and a star priest. I'm all of that. Take one piece away and the rest shifts and changes, just like...just like this island, or any land.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“What else is love but mettle and blood?”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“What is the point of a crown without a legacy?”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Everything that did not get out of her way would burn.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I assume nothing, and it has served me very well.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Rain is not always a storm. The wind does not always howl. Sometimes death is quiet, or love is peaceful. There are little things.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“It begins, too, with a star prophecy.
But there are so many prophecies read on the island of Lear that to say so is as good as saying it begins with every breath.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“There was little room for adventure without faith.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“A man cannot be friends with why.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“She had no idea how to tell him this did not feel like grief. She hardly felt at all. This nothing inside her was like a windless, dead ocean. Where was the crashing? Where were the waves and whitecaps, the rolling anger and spitting sorrow she should be feeling?”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“What do you want, now that this storm has passed?”
“I am the storm. I want this island to crumble, and see what rises. Discover who can transform all the shattered power into something strong. Will it be you?”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“There were so many years and lies between them. They were practically strangers, but for memory and hope.
It was enough.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Your fate is in their star-sharpened hands.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“How do I weave it all back together? Elia asked.
And the island said, Be everything.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“My God is all and has no name but God. God is more than stars and trees and worms, and is all those things, too. I pray, but with action and choice, and God knows it, no matter where I am, because God is in me, and in you, and everything.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Strands of wormwork and the thin light of daytime stars sparkled as they reached for each other, but fell short and dropped instead to the ground. Little imaginary flowers, born of bruised hearts and silly hopes, blossomed for just a few brief moments, lifted in pairs like the wings of tiny moths, then sank home to the earth and died.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“She tasted sweet and sharp, her lips like flower petals, her tongue darting. It felt more like an earth saint’s blessing than a woman’s kiss.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“She tasted sweet and sharp, her lips like flower
petals, her tongue darting. It felt more like an earth saint’s blessing than a woman’s kiss.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“She is her own sun, no moon for mine.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“It is magic, real magic in our blood and in the song of the trees.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Perhaps the strangeness on Innis Lear had infected him. Perhaps she was a fracture in his careful crown.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“Finally Elia met Aefa’s green gaze. “I don’t know how. I believe you, and yet … after all these years, how do I let you in? How have I never done so, before? What if I lose you, too, Aefa, as soon as I let myself love you?”

“Then you’ll survive.” Aefa leaned in swiftly to kiss Elia’s lips. “You’ll mourn, and you’ll survive. That’s what love is. It shouldn’t break you, not like your father broke, but make you stronger.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear

“I will break myself in order to make myself,” Gaela whispered, shivering suddenly with pain and promise.
And perhaps then this island, too.”
― Tessa Gratton, The Queens of Innis Lear