And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.

He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.

Ben Adaephon Delat," Pearl said plaintively, "see the last who comes. You send me to my death." "I know," Quick Ben whispered. "Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape no more." Quick Ben sank down past the roof. Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. "Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?" "Yes" he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.

I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.

There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.

All that we were has led us to where we are, but tells us little of where we’re going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.

Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope.