The Warrior's Path Quotes

“I didn’t know what being young had to do with it. It seemed to me that older people could do foolish things just as easily as young ones. I had certainly seen older people do some very foolish things.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“When someone insults me, it makes me angry.” “If that’s true, then your feelings will always be at the mercy of others.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“I’m not sure I understand you,” she said. “Are you telling me you saved my life because you were angry with me?” The idea struck me funny. “Yes,” I said, trying not to smile. “Furious.” “Furious?” “Enraged,” I said. “Oh dear.” And then she smiled.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Were there once only women warriors, Mother?” “Don’t know.” “Oh.” I started to get up. “Makes sense,” she said. “Why?” “Who else should take a life? No man ever brought a child out of his body.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“When your body feels pain,” she said at last, “you try to find the cause and do something to stop it, because your pain is warning you of a real danger. When your heart feels pain, you need to find the cause of that too, because the danger is no less real, and your pain will grow worse until you understand what caused it. Only then will you know what can be done to stop it.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“I felt like a bird, caged all its life, set free by an open window and cowering upon the windowsill.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“As I lay in the darkness with the thong around my wrist, I believed I understood Gnith's spell. The thong was more than long enough, but every time Maara moved, I felt it move with her. It kept me constantly aware of her, and if a person's thoughts are with someone, how can she break away to go with someone else? When I slept, my warriors walked in my dreams, and in my dreams, the thong that bound us was not from wrist to wrist, but from heart to heart.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“How could that be a choice? When someone insults me, it makes me angry.” “If that’s true, then your feelings will always be at the mercy of others.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Every thing in the world can wait but one. Only love can’t wait.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Think of a woman whose body has made a child. Who gave birth to it. Cradled and nursed it. Loved it. She will hold life dear differently than someone who has not.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Because you didn’t know you had a choice.” “What choice?” “To be angry or not.” It was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. “That’s not a choice.” “Yes,” she said. “It is.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Food is the distance you can travel in a day, and the cold you can withstand at night.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“It took me a long time to learn that I didn’t have to feel what someone wanted me to feel, but once I learned it, it became a habit. It’s a useful habit. Because I wasn’t angry, I was able to think clearly about what was the best thing to do.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“A woman with a warrior’s heart shouldn’t fear the truth,” she said. “No weapon in the world is stronger than the truth.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“It would be better for you if you were not my friend."
"It's too late for that," I told her.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Discipline is simply self-control. If a warrior can't control her feelings, she can't control her actions, and if she can't control her actions, she may blunder into a serious mistake.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Think of a woman whose body has made a child. Who gave birth to it. Cradled and nursed it. Loved it. She will hold life dear differently than someone who has not.” I wondered if once only mothers had been warriors. § § §”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Your feelings tell you many things about the world,” she said, “but people seldom listen to what their feelings tell them. It’s much more satisfying to indulge one’s feelings than to learn from them.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Why can’t you sleep?” Sparrow whispered. “You must be exhausted.” “The world changes too much,” I whispered back. “I’m trying to keep up.” Sparrow brushed my cheek with her fingertips. “You can catch up tomorrow,” she said. “Close your eyes.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“so far remained unbroken. Now my turn had come. In early springtime, when I was just sixteen, my mother took me to the house where she had won her shield so many years before. The Lady Abicel, long dead, had left her house and lands, along with her”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“the women of my family had gone to war. My mother’s sisters, older than she, fought in the service of the Lady Abicel in the last war against the northern tribes. Their mother served the Lady’s mother in wars told of in grandmothers’ tales. As far back as our line was remembered, our family and hers stood side by side. My mother too had served the Lady. Too young to bear arms in the last war, from within the palisade where she trained to take her place among the warriors, she heard the clash of arms and the screams of the dying outside the walls. She”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“My mother bore no arms,”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“You have the right to refuse to do anything that anyone asks of you, but that doesn’t mean that to refuse is always wise.” “But I have the right to be unwise, isn’t that true?” “Yes,” she said. “You’re a free woman. We are all free women here. Freedom is important, just as obedience is important. Each has its place.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“So it is the custom that a free woman leave her mother’s house to bind herself and those of her blood to a neighboring clan, either by the sword or by the cradle.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“stood side by side. My mother too had served the Lady. Too young to bear arms in the last war, from within the palisade where she trained to take”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Suddenly I realized that everything was going to change. I had been living with uncertainty for so long that I should have been more prepared, but I had been thinking that things would go back to being the way they used to be, to the way that had been comfortable and familiar. Now I knew that could never happen, any more than I could be the same person tomorrow that I was yesterday.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“I knew better than to look away from a look like that. I held her gaze, not as a challenge, but to show her that I knew what she wanted and that I intended, if I could, to prevent her having it.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“You have declared your intention to become a warrior. You can’t go back to being what you were before. The path you’ve chosen will take everything you can bring to it, and death may be the price of failure.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“It took me a moment to understand what she was doing, and when I did, my body had already taken me beyond a boundary I didn’t know existed until then.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path

“Now I longed for just one familiar thing. I felt like a bird, caged all its life, set free by an open window and cowering upon the windowsill.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, The Warrior's Path