Better to know the quick pain of truth than the ongoing pain of a long-held false hope.

I still recommend reading travel guides as an insight to a travellers perspective on fantasy worlds. Nearly all characters end up travelling at some point, and they have many of the same needs and concerns covered in travel guides.

How am I going to make friends with these people if all I can think of is how easy it would be to rob them?

So what were you [Sonea] and Dorrien discussing before?' Akkarin asked. She turned to regard him. 'Discussing?' 'Outside the farmhouse when I was buying the food.' 'Oh. Then. Nothing.' He smiled and nodded. 'Nothing. Amazing subject, that one. Produces such fascinating reactions in people.

It was impossible to imagine the aloof, dignified, powerful High Lord living as, of all things, a slave.

Unquestioning obedience is for slaves, the uneducated and the pathetic.

I wound up studying art and design, got a job at Lonely Planet Publications as a designer, cartographer and illustrator.