When one is the agent of order and civilisation in the universe, one doesn't stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans.

It's the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren't small at all.

Unity, I thought, implies the possibility of disunity. Beginnings imply and require endings.

Thoughts are ephemeral, they evaporate in the moment they occur, unless they are given action and material form. Wishes and intentions, the same. Meaningless, unless they impel you to one choice or another, some deed or course of action, however insignificant. Thoughts that lead to action can be dangerous. Thoughts that do not, mean less than nothing.

Falling didn't bother me. I could fall forever and not be hurt. It's stopping that's the problem.

To be Radchaai is to be civilised.

If you're going to make a desperate, hopeless act of defiance you should make it a good one.