Immortality gets very, very boring. You'd be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia.

We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.

But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn't always guard the gates.

Determination could easily become obsession.

The priest's lesson: beware the Nightlord, for his pleasure is a mortal's doom. My grandmother's lesson: beware love, especially with the wrong man.

This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot.

I'm tired of being what everyone else has made me," I said. "I want to be myself." "Don't be a child." I looked up, startled and angry, though of course there was nothing to see. "What?" "You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I'm tired of your whining.