Tehanu

Is power that—an emptiness?

And I know that all I understand about living is having your work to do, and being able to do it. That’s the pleasure, and the glory, and all. And if you can’t do the work, or it’s taken from you, then what’s any good? You have to have something....

“She obeys me, but only because she wants to.”

“It’s the only justification for obedience,” Ged observed.

A great deal of her obscurity and cant, Tenar had begun to realize, was mere ineptness with words and ideas. Nobody had ever taught her to think consecutively. Nobody had ever listened to what she said. All that was expected, all that was wanted of her was muddle, mystery, mumbling. She was a witchwoman. She had nothing to do with clear meaning.

It’s not a weapon or a woman can make a man, or magery either, or any power, anything but himself.

A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.

“Is it different, then, for men and for women?”

“What isn’t, dearie?”

Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice.