Sidonie, I know you don't remember it, but you once promised to trust me beyond all reason. And I swear to you that all that I am, all that I possess, including this gem-stone, is yours. I need you. I can't do this alone. Forget your memories. Look into your heart. And if you can find somewhere there, some lingering spark of trust that owes naught to reason, I beg you to speak the word written here.

It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

Some chains are forged for us - those are the hardest to bear.

There is no fulfillment that is not made sweeter for the prolonging of desire

Well, I was living it, but a shared dream half-lived is a hollow thing

Oh love and hate are two sides of the same blade