I brought coffee." "Dinar of Prinagos has just won my unqualified support against the perfidious White Bragenmeres under any circumstances, at any ti… - Barbara Hambly

The priests of Agon saw in wizardry what the priests of all the cults of the gods saw: a body of men and women who did not need to petition the deities for assistance, a challenge to their authority, and a living question about the way they said the world worked.

But too many people had come to him and Jaldis over the years, asking for magic to fix their lives. He knew of no spell which could not be twisted out of its purpose by fate, no potion which would for better or for worse change a human soul’s inner essence. No sigil he’d made had ever altered the words that rose automatically to a person’s lips when they weren’t thinking.
Yet people kept acting as if someday the laws of magic would spontaneously change and spells would do all these things.

Why do they call them love-spells, anyway?" he added bitterly. "It isn't love, you know."
"Maybe because some people can't tell the difference.…Or if they suspect there's a difference, they don't want to know.