We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.

All knowledge is worth having

And Kushiel sends no punishment that we are not fit to bear.

The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart

I can see patterns in events, and behaviors; in mathematics, I follow slower

Nothing spoils idle pleasure like too much awareness

It is a comfort, in anguish, to be reminded of the scale of one's own troubles against the mighty breadth of the world.