This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods. Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.

And this was your friend?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long the stand around chatting before they shoot you.

I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.

All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, a scientist, an artist, or an entrepreneur. In service of their goals, they lay down time, energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self.

It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture.

He's not too short. He's just... concentrated.

People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damned rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf.