Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.

What people read revealed so much about them that she considered our card catalog a treasure house of privileged secrets; each card contained the map of an individual’s soul.

I can't really work on more than one thing at a time

Love was like that, like a dream you didn't quite understand, one in which you didn't necessarily know what you were looking at until it was right in front of you.

Love is worth the sum of itself, and nothing more.

That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife.

It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.