You must become like yourself.

Be polite to all, friendly to none. Be professional. Be ready to kill everyone and everything.

Niko, you're halfway to where you need to go. It's the most dangerous time. And all the gods and forces have a stake in you, Hero. Or do you want to be just a memory, a cult somewhere, with people sacrificing horses to your name?

When I write what publishers call 'fantasy' I am writing in what I think is the most important tradition of fiction: starting with Homer and up through Shakespeare and Milton, the most important themes to tackle are those of the mythopoeic domain, tales of the body and mind seen through a temperament and a cosmos divorced from current reality so what is said can be more clear.

The meaning of life, Nikodemos, is to live life with meaning. The purpose of life is merely to live it, perhaps to give it.

Nothing walks the earth more savage than a mare enraged.

We fouled up. I did. He got hurt. Badly, maybe. And the god...is not helping him today.