That’s all this job is, Daine,” she explained. “Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And it will only get worse, not better.

We are what we’re made to be.

Beneath her calm exterior she wished fiercely that she could pound the meanness out of Joren. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do better to ignore him. Water, she thought, collecting her staff from the shed where it was kept. I am a summer lake on a windless day, clear, cool, and still. Joren is a cloud. All he can do is cast a shadow on my surface. I’ll be here long after he’s gone.

Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public,” Vedris always said. “They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies.

What people tell me they take away from my books is that they can shape their lives, they can achieve their own dreams. And certainly that’s what I want them to take away.

Well, no, but everyone says they do.” Someday I must read this scholar Everyone, she thought as she bit her tongue to keep from giving a rude answer. He seems to have written so much – all of it wrong.

Da says I make a whole loaf from pigeon crumbs.

The sands drift always, yet the desert remains the same.

We can’t just act without thinking anymore, Tris. They’ve been trying to teach as that all along. I guess if we’re mages, we can’t exactly be kids, can we? – Sandry after the pirate attack.

And I think Alanna would quote Sean Connery from “The Untouchables” to you: “At the end of your shift, go home alive.” She would say, Don’t think about being brave or working hard – just do what you need to do. When you look back, you’ll be surprised to see that this was exactly enough.