One didn't stop to talk with creatures from one's nightmares.

By things so achingly small are lives measured and marred.

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

The heart has its own laws... and the truth is... the truth is that you are the law of mine.

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.

Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had.

Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales.