These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went. In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.

When you are young, hone your craft and write shorter pieces instead of novels, because it's really hard to finish a novel.

Which is what one always hopes will happen: for life to take over and be bigger and more marvelous than what we can dream up on our own. Life doesn’t need magic to be magical. (But a little bit sure doesn't hurt.)

...they cupped their wings around their happiness and called it a world, though they both knew it was not a world, only a hiding place, which is a very different thing.

...and she felt the words come from some iron place within her that hadn't existed an hour ago. She didn't speak loudly, but there was such a change in her voice. Coming from that iron place, it was heavy and true; it wasn't persuasive, or desperate, or antagonistic. It just was.

What can a soldier do when mercy is treason, and he is alone in it?

Humanity, perhaps, that quality of benevolence that humans have, without irony, named after themselves.