Mercedes Lackey
There's more than enough seriousness in the world.
If there are going to be people out there making war on other people, don't you think it's a good idea for some of those people to at least follow a code of ethics? Not 'honor' but something you can pin down and be sure of, something with the same rules for everybody.
It makes sense for people who are good at fighting to go out and do it-because if they're good at it, that means the fewest number of other people die.
These are my friends, my family. It would be hell on earth to spend the rest of my life leading them into situations where some of them are going to get killed... but it would be worse watching someone well-meaning but incompetent or untrained double those deaths.
Magic, like technology, is a tool.
I try to use all of my senses when describing a setting, and try to think of everything that would impact a character in any given scene.
I always work from an outline, so I know all the of the broad events and some of the finer details before I begin writing the book.
I think canceling a game that is making a profit, along with destroying jobs and an online community, is entirely unethical.
Writing with other people is absolutely delightful. It's social, which a writer doesn't usually get to do.
The fastest I've ever done a book is a 112,000-word book in about a month.
Other people can have all the children they want. Some people ask for no-smoking sections. I ask for no children.
When I am down, there is nothing like a bowl of hot popcorn; popcorn means great movies and reading fantasy books wrapped up in a soft blanket to me.
Adventure, yeah. I guess that's what you call it when everybody comes back alive.Collection: Adventure
If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.Collection: Love
The people who keep coping, keep trying, no matter how many blows Fate takes at them. Nobody'll make a song about them, but they're heroes all the same.Collection: Song
If I'm walking on thin ice, I might as well dance my way acrossCollection: Ice
It's only gossip if you repeat it. Until then, it's gathering information.Collection: Gossip
Assume the attitude of prayer, and in time, the attitude will become prayer.Collection: Prayer
Getting angry over something that won't change is like seeing what happens if you hit your hand with a hammer over and over again, and being surprised each time when it hurts. So you might as well stop doing it.Collection: Hurt
There’s no such thing as `one, true way’; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good — they’re the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren’t willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race.Collection: Race
Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.Collection: Support
Honor was never taking the easy way when it was also the wrong one. Never telling a falsehood unless the truth was painful and unnecessary, or a lie was necessary to save others. Never manipulating the truth to serve only yourself. Protecting the weak and helpless; standing fast even when fear made you weak. Keeping your word.Collection: Lying
The great love is gone. There are still little loves - friend to friend, brother to sister, student to teacher. Will you deny yourself comfort at the hearthfire of a cottage because you may no longer sit by the fireplace of a palace? Will you deny yourself to those who reach out to you in hopes of warming themselves at your hearthfire?Collection: Teacher
This I think I have learned: where there is love, the form does not matter, and the gods are pleased. This I have observed: what occurs in nature, comes by the hand of nature, and if the gods did not approve, it would not be there ~ Moondance k'Treva (Magic's Pawn)Collection: Thinking
Give your enemy a face, If he is human, do not dehumanize him. Know him and know why he is your enemy. If your enemy is within you, understand what it is and why you are afraid. Put a face on your fear. When you understand it, and it is no longer vague and shapeless, you will find that your fear is no longer so formidable.Collection: Courage
Inexperience can be overcome, ignorance can be enlightened, but prejudice will destroy you.Collection: Ignorance
We're none of us quite so sure of our place in the world that we can't be rocked off our feet by bad times. It's the getting back up again that counts. Not that you fall, but getting back up again counts for more in the long run.Collection: Running
Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but don't hurt anybody.' Nice little paraphrase of "An it harm none, do as ye will" if I do say so myself.Collection: Dog
Doctor MacKenzie says "Sometimes I think the Victorians had the right idea. When you lost a family member back then you were suppose to be in full mourning, dress in nothing but black, for a whole year. Then you went into something they called 'half mourning' for another full year, adn during those two years, you were pretty much expected to have emotional breakdowns, you could do it whenever you felt you needed to, and everybody would support you. Now?, A month after a tragedy, maybe two, and you're expected to be all better-or down pills so you can pretend you are.Collection: Emotional
Change or stagnate. Keep moving or die.Collection: Moving
He isn't stupid, but his interests are so narrow I doubt I could slip a sheet of paper in between themCollection: Stupid
It's just as easy to be lonely in a city as out in the wilderness. Easier, really. It's harder to get to know someone when you meet in a crowded place. People can freely ignore you in the city; they can assume they don't have any responsibility for you. When there are fewer people, (...) they begin assuming some kind of responsibility, simply because you naturally do the same.Collection: Lonely
Mister Cameron - I have read the unexpurgated Ovid, the love poems of Sappho, the Decameron in the original, and a great many texts in Greek and Latin histories that were not though fit for proper gentlemen to read, much less proper ladies. I know in precise detail what Caligula did to, and with, his sisters, and I can quote it to you in Latin or in my own translation if you wish. I am interested in historical truth, and truth in history is often unpleasant and distasteful to those of fine sensibility. I frankly doubt that you will produce anything to shock me.Collection: Latin
Three things trust and cherish well- The horse on which you ride, The beast that guards and watches, And your shield-mate at your side.Collection: Horse
I'm not a legend or a hero, I don't slay dragons, I don't do any of the things that a real hero can. But I can make things better, one day at a time, for most of the kingdom.Collection: Real
It's hard being a rock; they have such a strange sense of time - and priorities.Collection: Rocks
In a calm, clear voice, she suggested that the wyrsa in question could do several highly improbable, athletically difficult and possibly biologically impractical things involving its own mother, a few household implements, and a dead fish.Collection: Mother
[Harrier] locked eyes with Zanattar. He couldn't remember another time in his life when he'd been this angry and hadn't hit something.Collection: Eye
In a dog's world, only three states existed: "now," "in a while," and "forever." If someone left, he was gone "forever," and when he returned they rejoiced as much as if he were back from the dead precisely because he'd been gone "forever.Collection: Dog
You jackass. We're all going to die here. You know that, right?' Harrier said. Yeah," Eugens said shakily. '...Guess I might as well die here with you as out on the desert with a bunch of other jackasses.Collection: Desert
Parents always know what strings control your heart and soul. After all, they are the ones who tied them there.Collection: Heart
If they projected the fact that they are dangerous any harder, there would be little puddles of "danger" on the floor around them. Look, it's "danger", don't step in it!Collection: Would Be
Time doesn't. All that Time does is make it more distant, put more space between you and what happened. It doesn't heal anything. I don't know how or what does the healing, but it isn't Time.Collection: Pain
If it is stupid but it works, it isn't stupid. (a Shin'a'in saying)Collection: Stupid
Nevertheless, now that I have met you, I know that all that I am, and all that I have, could not match what you are worth.Collection: Mets
Pretend long enough that you belong, and eventually even you will believe it." - GallenCollection: Believe
Three things see no end- A flower blighted ere it bloomed, A message that was wasted, And a journey that was doomed.Collection: Flower
To treat a person like a carpet, it is necessary that one do the walking, and one allow himself to be walked on. --Shin'a'in sayingCollection: Treats
Caught between glass and wood, that which breaks and that which bends, that which sings and that which survive. So our lives go.Collection: Glasses
If you would rise, do so alone.Collection: Ifs