I’m saying there is evil in the world,” Master Kit said, hefting the box on his hip, “and doubt is the weapon that guards against it.

We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.

There's ways you can trust an enemy you can't always trust a friend. An enemy's never going to betray your trust.

Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly.

Court games aren't fair. They don't judge men by their worth, and they aren't about what's just. Guilty men can hold power their whole lives and be wept for when they pass. Innocent men can be spent like coins because it's convenient. You don't have to have sinned for them to ruin you. If your destruction is useful to them, you'll be destroyed.

I choose not to believe in any gods as an act of charity," Marcus said. "Charity toward whom?" "Toward the gods. Seems rude to think they couldn't make a world better than this.

Can you love someone you don't trust?" "Absolutely," he said. "I have a sister I wouldn't lend two copper lengths if I wanted them back. The problem with loving someone you don't trust is finding the right distance.