One man sees a riselka: his life forks there.  Two men see a riselka: one of them shall die.  Three men see a riselka: one is blessed, one forks, one shall die. One woman sees a riselka: her path comes clear to her.  Two women see a riselka: one of them shall bear a child.  Three women see a riselka: one is blessed, one is clear, one shall bear a child.

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

I will not say I am sorry, but I can tell you that I grieve.

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

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?

The military preferred - invariably - those who could be readily defined, assigned roles, understood, and controlled.

Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls.