I am who I choose to be. I have always been what I chose, though not always what I pleased.

Miles exhaled carefully, faint with rage and reminded grief. He does not know, he told himself. He cannot know... "Ivan, one of these days somebody is going to pull out a weapon and plug you, and you're going to die in bewilderment, crying, "What did I say? What did I say?" "What did I say?" asked Ivan indignantly.

It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.

Our children change us... whether they live or not.

The most important thing about quests, he decided, was not in finding what you went looking for, but in finding what you never could have imagined before you ventured forth.

How could you be a Great Man if history brought you no Great Events, or brought you to them at the wrong time, too young, too old?

Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved.