If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places.

I can't believe I'm about to say this," I said. "So think real careful about where this is coming from. Have you people ever considered *talking* when you've got a problem?

It always shocked me how you could understand so many things and be such a complete idiot about so many others.

Any time I’m not shooting my mouth off to a clichéd, two-bit creature of the night like you, it’s because I’m up to something.

Give it to 'em!" Take 'em down!" First Aleran!" Kick their furry--" Assault formation!

Isana laughed. "And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?" The lady smiled. "That's a question rarely asked here at court." "And why is that?" "Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience—only much more convincingly.

The fire of my tribulations had not simply been pain to be endured. It had been an agent of transformation. After all that I'd been through, I'd changed. Not for the worse, I was pretty sure--at least not yet. But only a moron or a freaking lunatic could have faced the things I had and remained unfazed by them.