And through all the misery, she said that some of us in this lifetime experience a moment of beauty beyond reckoning. I asked her what that was, and she said, "If you're one of the lucky ones, you'll know it when you see it. You'll understand why the gods have made you suffer. Because that moment's reward will make your knees weak and everything you've suffered in life will pale in comparison.

But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.

Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.

Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.

I think you'll just have to wait for that Loser of the Month tiara a little while longer while I wear it, with pride, around my neighborhood.

You're judging her by her literacy,' Tara says. 'You're a literacist.' 'You've made that up.' Thomas Mackee packs up his stuff and stands up. 'You chicks give me the shits,' he says. 'You, on the other hand, brighten up our day,' I tell him. 'We all regard you as a god.

And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day. Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.