And we will cause it to be well-made, this Sacrifice. You, young and never loving; I, old and never loved. Such a Song the Sea will never have seen.

What teens will realize is always a mystery to me. I'm still realizing so many things myself, very belatedly, that it seems unwise to think I have any right to be showing people things in hopes that they'll realize them.

It’d be a poor kind of world where there was just one explanation for things. ---Rhiow

Belief made no difference to the truth.

The Spear in the Other’s heart is the spear in your own: you are he.

There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets.

The city breathing, burning, living the life thy had preserved. Ten million lives and more. If something should happen to all that life - how terrible! Nita gulped for control as she remembered Fred's word of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurts. Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to make strange things happen. Those were the side effects - not the reason, the purpose.