At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, much more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn't converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food - for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them.

I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books?

War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving.

An equation is a prophecy that always comes true.

You humans, you know, whoever built you sewed irony into your sinews.

Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.

She was beautiful and terrifying, savage and pure.