She assumes that skill will guide her fingertips, that shapely lines will uncoil out of the pencil the moment she starts. Surely talent is a thing curled deep inside, just waiting to be exercised, and at the slightest invitation it will stretch, shake itself, make itself known? Talent, it seems, is not so insistent.

When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.

Everyone dies. It's a question of where and how, that's all.

They'd never been lovers, of course, not in the physical sense. But they'd been lovers as most of us manage, loving through expressions and gestures and the palm set softly upon the bruise at the necessary moment. Lovers by inclination rather than by lust. Lovers, that is, by love.

The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

I shall pray for your soul,' promised Nessarose. I shall wait for your shoes,' Elphie answered.

Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is.