The running pants were tolerable, Drustan decided, relieved. The blue trews had clearly been a torture device and would have strangled a man's seed. Mayhap men were fashioned differently in her time. He hadn't seen one other bulge out there on the street; mayhap they all had wee carrots in their trews.

The kind of person that thanks another person never survives. Have you learned nothing?

Dude, the bush is ready. Why you still beating around it?” “I’ve lived a long time, kid, and I’ve never heard anyone mutilate the English language quite like you.

Being threatened seems to being out the worst in me.

There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I'd rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies.

Those who were so long imprisoned in ice and darkness seem to find the sunlight jarring, painful. The longer I walk around with this grief inside me, the more I understand that. It’s as if sunshine is a slap in the face that says, Look, the world’s all bright and shiny! Too bad you’re not.

Please tell me we don't grow up and turn into the adults that drive us crazy.