I am not who I was, but I know who I am.

You cannot miss what you have never had.

I took a bunch of pictures. You can see 'em on my MySpace page, along with my favorite songs and movies and things that other people have created but that I use to express my individualism.

Always it is thus with my new students, and especially with the human ones; the mind is the last muscle they train or use, and the one that they regard the least. Ask them about swordplay and they can list every blow from a duel a month old, but ask them to solve a problem or make a coherent statement and... well, I would be lucky to get more than a blank stare in return.

Pain is pain. It needs no description.

I cannot prove that gods do not exist. Nor can I prove that the world and everything in it was not created by an entity or entities in the distant past. But I can tell you that in the millennia we elves have studied nature, we have never witnessed an instance where the rules that govern the world have been broken. That is, we have never seen a miracle. Many events have defied our ability to explain, but we are convinced that we failed because we are still woefully ignorant about the universe and not because a deity altered the workings of nature.

To know who you are without any delusions or sympathy is a moment of revelation that no one experiences unscathed.