Irritation for some men was their response to strain.

There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.

How we remember changes how we have lived. Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.

After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.

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

I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.

We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]