Quotes by Jonathan Renshaw

First, the wind would rumble in the distance like an approaching river, then he would see grass bend, pressed by a great invisible hand. The dull rumble would rise in pitch to a swishing, lashing exultation, causing stalks to lie flat against the ground while the tougher branches of shrubs held themselves up and shrieked their defiance in the gusts. Then the first drops, cold and heavy, would plummet from the sky and burst on the ground.

I would rather be the person who steps in front of a whole gang to defend someone and gets beaten up for it than the person who watches from a safe hiding. There were times I hid, and I think the shame hurts more than the bruises would have.

He could not afford to indulge misery, to live in the past and stumble through life facing backwards.

I always hated...all sad songs. I thought they made happy people miserable. Now I think I understand them better. Bards write them because they cant hold them back. Sadness has got to flow out or it gets stuck and turns bitter.

Without imagination, things were only as they appeared - and that was blindness. Things were more than they appeared, so much more. When he considered an oak tree, it was not just a tree. To someone small, like an ant, it was a whole landscape of rugged barky cliffs and big green leaf-plains that quaked when the sky was restless, a place of many strange creatures where fearsome winged beasts could pluck and devour someone in a blink.

Aedan had never felt embarrassed about his imagination. Without it there was no magic.

How could children have spotted what everyone else couldn’t?” “Because we haven’t killed off our imaginations,” Aedan mumbled behind a wrapping of arms and knees.

You! Skeet bellowed.When uttered with just the right tone, this is the universal name for any boy. Accordingly, all heads snapped towards the angry master.

Yes, Im sure [the princess] thinks daily of a delinquent midget apprentice growing up to claim her hand ahead of all the nobles and princes of the realm. What could any of them possibly give that you dont have, except titles, land, wealth and all that.

Uh, I really didnt mean to disturb you.I sincerely hope that is untrue. If you arrived here with no objective capable of disturbing me then you arrived with no objective at all, and you will have succeeded in disturbing me without purpose.

A mystery is so much more exciting than a wrapped up answer...A mystery carries on but an answer just ends.

A mystery is so much more exciting than a wrapped up answer, wouldn’t you say? A mystery carries on but an answer just ends.

If you care about people and you really love them, you should get angry at the things that put them in danger or hurt them.

The confession of ignorance is crucial to the pursuit of knowledge. Another way of putting it is that those who pretend to know never will – they lack the humility to learn.

You would think, Aedan said, that Id feel good about this-Ive grown while he, my old enemy, has shrunk. Yet all I feel is a terrible ache. I pity him, that he has been called by age to surrender his strength.

Are you planning to kiss me? Aedan asked.No. Emroy wrinkled a pimply nose.Then why are you standing so close? Aedans tone was perfect innocence.

Too fearful to intervene and hold back the tormenter, she was pleading instead with the victim to be more submissive. It was a solution that would resolve the conflict while entrenching the problem. Aedan didn’t have the words to understand, but he could feel the wrongness of it.

Unless the inquiry has been so exhaustive as to explore every possibility, the lack of evidence should never be used to ground a statement of fact. Unlikelihood certainly, but no more. A prematurely assumed fact blocks further inquiry.

Maybe it’s the quiet,” Aedan resumed. “Let’s me think, or maybe it’s the opposite of normal thinking, more like untangling. I’m comfortable in those spots.

Bit of a limp conclusion if you ask me,” Osric growled. “You academics are always so timid with your words. Your conclusion sounds like a different form of the question.” “And so it is, Osric,” Fergal said with a chuckle. “Slightly whittled, sharper, but it is still a question. In time it will be sharp enough to impale the answer.