I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.

Everything is a contest. All dealings among men are a contest in which some will succeed and others fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.

I am what the universe made me to be, my dear.

It's all right Wayne," Waxillium said softly. "I've made a promise. I told Lord Harms I'd return Steris to him. And I will. That is that." "Then I will remain and help," Marasi said. "That is that." "And I could really use some food," Wayne added. "Fat is fat.

I am a writer who works from an outline. What I generally do when I build an outline is I find focal, important scenes, and I build them in my head and I don't write them yet, but I build towards them.

Everyone gets scared, Princess. Even brave men sometimes run the first time they see battle. In armies, that's why there's so much training. The ones who hold aren't the courageous ones, they're the well-trained ones. We have instincts like any other animal.

Entropy shakes its angry fist at you for being clever enough to organize the world. (p 2)