We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.

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.

most hated by the dark, for their name is light.

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

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.

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