No one is safe from nature's savagery,not even the innocent. Only beauty is consistent. Gabrielle envisions a time when the Savage Garden will overtake civilizations and destroy it.

Everyone is a potential naked slave to you once you become a trainer.

I'm always looking, and I'm always asking questions.

Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ASK. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds.

….it was a brave man’s fear. I knew what he meant. What must a brave general feel when he knows the battle has gone against him and nothing remains but death?

Don't be a pawn in somebody's game. Find the attitude which gives you the maximum strength and the maximum dignity, no matter what else is going on

And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.