She really was pretty, for a grown-up person, but when you are seven, beauty is an abstraction, not an imperative. I wonder what I would have done if she had smiled at me like that now: whether I would have handed my mind or my heart or my identify to her for the asking, as my father did.

Here, far from our homes, we will be forgotten by our gods.

Belinda stared into the fire for some time, thinking about what she had in her life, and what she had given up; and whether it would be worse to love someone who was no longer there, or not to love someone who was.

I never fell. I don't care what they say. I'm still doing my job, as I see it.

Call no man happy, said Shadow, until he is dead

I learned to write by writing.

People tend to find books when they are ready for them.