I am infected with life and will die of it in time.

She said, "I will go no farther." "There is no choice. We can only go on." The magician said again. "We can only go on.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of anything. Whatever you have been, you are mine now. I can hold you.

If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.

Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air.

We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.

song of elli (old age) "What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain What is gone is gone... What is sea-born dies on land, Soft is trod upon. What is given burns the hand - What is gone is gone... Here is there, and high is low; All may be undone. What is true, no two men know - What is gone is gone... Who has choices need not choose. We must, who have none. We can love but what we lose - What is gone is gone.