However 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.

Orma 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.

Did I become court composer through masterful procrastination? Hardly!

I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature.

However 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.

If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars.

It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.