It's one thing to not want an evil-sorcerer type villain in your story, but it's another thing to avoid having any sort of antagonist at all. A story without an antagonist gets weird pretty quick.

If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.

I'm not a role model. I'm an aberation. A statistical anomoly. Following in my footsteps is about the dumbest thing you could ever do.

...hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.

The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up.

Thieves, Heretics, and Whores

Fencing is more a sport than a martial art. It would be like basing your knowledge of roman phalanx warfare on NFL football.