There's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.

Being at ease with himself put him at ease with the world.

'I know,' said Winter, 'but they don't know.' And he went on with a thought he had been having. 'A time-minded people,' he said, 'and the time is nearly up. They think that just because they have only one leader and one head, we are all like that. They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people, and in a time of need leaders pop up among us like mushrooms.'

To be alive at all is to have scars.

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.

A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shadows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.