I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature.
Rachel HartmanIf I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars.
Rachel HartmanWas it probably true that reasoning beings were equal? It seemed more like a belief than a fact, even if I agreed with it. If you followed logic all the way back to its origin, did you inevitably end up at point of illogic, an article of faith?
Rachel HartmanI had felt the shot coming; I hadn't realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition?
Rachel HartmanThat’s the secret to performance: conviction. The right note played tentatively still misses its mark, but play boldly and no one will question you. If one believes there is truth in art – and I do – then it’s troubling how similar the skill of performing is to lying. Maybe lying is itself a kind of art. I think about that more than I should.
Rachel HartmanThe world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and gods.
Rachel HartmanAnd I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.
Rachel HartmanOrma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it.
Rachel HartmanHowever strenuously the world pulls us apart, however long the absence, we are not changed for being dashed upon the rocks. I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home.
Rachel HartmanHaven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing.
Rachel HartmanThe twin gods, Necessity and Chance, walked among the stars. What needed to be, was; what might be, sometimes was.
Rachel HartmanI was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who’d rather avoid them.
Rachel HartmanClaude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable.
Rachel Hartman