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

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.

What mortal knew the way their fate line would run?

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]

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

She had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends.

Why did becoming accustomed to something have to render its pleasures stale.