Rusalka Quotes

“He had no wish to be killed by a bogle in which he resolutely did not believe.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Don't mourn might-have-beens . Magic can't work backwards , only forward . I taught you better than that .”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“If it had taken Pyetr’s shape, Sasha thought, trembling now it was gone, if it did that, if it was one of their enemy’s creatures and not the vodyanoi’s, then their enemy knew who Pyetr was.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“You’d better make up your mind to count him gone, because he’s your weakness, boy. You’re going to flinch when you shouldn’t, because you’re too weak, and the one favor you can do me for the rest of this hike, boy! is to watch the woods around you, look at the leaves, think about the leaves and nothing but leaves, hear me? Or if your friend is alive you’ll destroy every chance we have to do anything for anybody.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Nothing’s hopeless except never trying.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Pyetr Illitch, you’re certainly someone’s; tonight I really wonder whose.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“A rusalka is a wish. A wish not to die. A wish for revenge. That describes my daughter.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“I wonder what happened to this Kavi Chernevog. I wonder where he is.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“His confidence and his courage were the only assets he had ever had in life, the fact that Pyetr Kochevikov would make a try while everyone else was hesitating. For a man who had a knowledge of the odds for his only inheritance from his father, the existence of unknowables and uncertainties threaded through every situation, was a terrible revelation.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“For the rest of his life he feared he was going to dream about things he did not understand.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“The boy trusts you. He’ll fight me for you, and for a lad of his sensitivities, that’s considerable courage. But he’s quite young. He can be persuaded against his better judgment-by a plausible scoundrel. Very like my daughter. That’s why I’m patient with him. But you-having none of his sensitivities, and a rebellious and entirely selfish attitude, in which god forbid there should be anything in the entire world outside your personal understanding!-have no hesitation about taking this boy off to your feckless purposes, for that? For Kiev? A place no better than the last that tried to satisfy you, or the next, or the next. Your lacks, sir, are in yourself; and you most unfortunately carry the baggage of whatever place you find yourself. Most significantly, you pass for a man, sir, in this boy’s eyes, and I suggest you examine the responsibilities of that position!”

“And what do you pass for?” Pyetr retorted. “A wizard. A scholar. A man of learning. About what? Sitting alone out here in the woods mixing stinking potions and talking to birds and snakes!”

“If you’d had the wit to talk to that one, we’d be better off. Sit down. Stop talking nonsense.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“If he had to believe in the rusalka he reckoned he was morally entitled to believe in Sasha Misurov-in Sasha he thought, much before Uulamets.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“She was indeed hardly more than Sasha’s age. He would never introduce to Sasha to some of the company he kept or show Sasha some of the things he had seen-he could not say why, except it would embarrass both of them; and she was so young, she was so like Sasha, he found himself imagining her expression as offended innocence-and her pursuit of him less attraction than vengeful disgust for a scoundrel.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Pyetr kept his mouth firmly shut for a moment and tried to think of the way a young and credulous boy might think, who respected wizards and goblins, a boy he firmly intended to get out of this place, even if the boy persisted in being a fool.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Sasha recollected smoke and fire and the terror the old man had put into him whenever he had flinched from the old man’s orders. He opened his eyes wider to the daylight and tried to drive that vision out of his eyes and the feeling out of his bones that there was something terribly dangerous and sinister about Uulamets beyond the obvious fact that he was a wizard.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“He saw shadows move on the ceiling, like scampering cats in the rafters, strange shapes like creatures lurking and slithering and pausing again.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“The staff lowered, thumped against the floor, and Sasha glanced from that point of impact up to the old man’s face, thinking he had never seen a grin like that except on a carved wolf, or eyes like that except on painted devils.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Let it rain. Father Sky missed us with his lightnings. He’s having a tantrum. Rich men are like that.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Pyetr’s eyes brightened when he talked about the gold. And he had said you and me, which nobody had ever said in Sasha’s memory-you and me was much rarer and much more desirable, in Sasha’s reckoning, than pearl-weeping crocodiles. Pyetr doubted the Field-thing; Sasha doubted Kiev and the gold-capped towers; but you and me was precious here and now.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Your uncle is a bully,” Pyetr said. “I am a profligate, a gambler, a liar, and occasionally a person of bad character, but I do swear to you, I have never been a bully, and you insist to make me one. Look me in the face, boy!”

Sasha looked up, stopped, startled as a rabbit.

“Good,” Pyetr said. “Say it again, about horses.”

“I don’t want to talk about the horses, Pyetr Illitch!”

“Then accept my deep apology, young sir.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“You’re too honest, Sasha Vasilyevitch. You should learn to laugh. That’s your trouble. You’re too serious”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“He could do too much by wishing, and he dragged himself back from that terrible wish he had that something should bring Pyetr Illitch to his senses.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Call him a fool, but if he had had luck anywhere in Vojvoda last night, it had been here, in Sasha Misurov’s company.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Pyetr Kochevikov believed in human weakness far more than he believed in wizards, human weakness being everywhere evident and sorcery being a matter, like the Little Old Man who should ward the stables, of people’s absolute will to believe other people’s responsibility.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“He was unlucky, was Sasha Misurov; and if aunt Ilenka’s grandmother’s churn was broken and the butter was gone and Pyetr Kochevikov and his rowdy, well-born friends made a shambles of the tavern yard, why, look to Sasha’s luck, the more since he was standing there like a fool”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Fire leapt up the shattered tower and at places on the roof, fire spread on the winds of Uulamets’ intention-wind rushing toward the house.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“They could see the towers through the woods, a huge house that might have graced some great city, sitting instead in desolation, weathered gray as the barren trees around it.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“One bully’s like another, Pyetr thought now bitterly. Never satisfied, never satisfied, no matter how much you give them.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Isn’t it foolish to fight me, when all I want is to give you everything you want? Listen to me, that’s all.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka

“Know what is and it can’t work its tricks. The power of names, boy.”
― C.J. Cherryh, Rusalka