My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.

The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.

Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.

Irritation for some men was their response to strain.

There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true?

We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.

What mortal knew the way their fate line would run?