Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.

We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.

Funny thing, employment. If you keep doing it, you keep getting paid.

There's truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.

And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal. That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.

There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.

Calling something exotic emphasizes its distance from the reader. We don't refer to things as exotic if we think of them as ordinary. We call something exotic if it's so different that we see no way to emulate it or understand how it came to be. We call someone exotic if we aren't especially interested in viewing them as people - just as objects representing their culture.