Michelle Sagara West

“She had managed to go almost three weeks without being late. Admittedly on two of those days she'd perambulated around the office like someone doing a good imitation of the walking dead - but she'd been timely walking dead, damn it.”

“There were always people who struggled their way to the top of the heap, no matter how much that heap looked like garbage when seen from the outside.”

“I'm sworn to uphold his laws. Saying that you killed someone because they annoyed you isn't codified as acceptable, by those laws, anywhere I'm aware of.""You are clearly not looking carefully enough.”

“You are an... animal? A talking animal?"Without missing a beat, Teela said, "Of course not. She's much, much harder to train.”

“Not all of our heartless plans work as we intend; nor do all of our good intentions. We are where we are, and we can rarely predict where we will go, no matter how firm our beliefs.”

“It made no sense, but nothing did at the moment, and at least this was a good crazy.”

“Kill me now.""Nonsense. Dead, you will provide no relief from the interminable boredom."Everyone needed a purpose in life. Kaylin, however, wished fervently for a better one at this moment.”

“At the very least, if I have not - yet- chosen to end your life, I refuse to allow any of my kin to forever deprive me of my prerogative to do so.”

“i'm never going to understand the Barrani.""You needn't sound so morose, Lord Kaylin. They are unlikely to understand you either.""Yes, but I'm unlikely to try to kill them for fun.”

“Can you hold off on the whole war thing until after I'm dead?”

“The end of the world is easy. We'll survive it, or we won't. But if we do survive, the rest of life is waiting.”

“Stop judging your life only by the failures," he whispered."What should I do?" she whispered. "I'm always going to fail.""We all do," he said softly, his voice closer now. "We all fail. But none of us fail all the time.”

“Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger. But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who said that? She couldn’t remember now. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was called aging. They reached toward if as if they were satellites in unstable orbits. And then when they got there, they were just dead. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts.”

“The look he gave her made her turn away for a moment. Sometimes you couldn’t look too closely at another person’s pain.”

“Truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.”

“Lies were something you told other people to make things easier, somehow - hopefully, for them, but often more selfishly for yourself.”

“She wanted to die. She wanted to die. Because then it would be over. All the loss, all the grief, all the pain, the emptiness - over. And she had said nothing then. Nothing. Nor had she crawled into her room and swallowed her mother’s pills, or crawled into her bath and opened up her own wrists. As if death were somehow personal. As if death were somehow an enemy that could be faced and stared down, she would not give it the satisfaction of seeing how badly it had hurt her. Again.”

“History is not our guide, it is not our friend. It is a passing stranger, one which shadows legend, sprinkling it with the seeds of truth.”

“Bellusdeo laughed. It was, for a moment, the only sound in the quiet of the fief’s night, and it was warmer and deeper than the lingering night chill. When her laughter faded, she glanced at Kaylin. “I was not like this before. I thought that the Shadows had not touched me.” She lowered her head a moment.Kaylin understood this, as well. “It seems so unfair,” she finally said.“Life is unfair. Which part of it pains you?”“We suffer, and it breaks something. When we win free—by gaining our name, by crossing a bloody bridge—we still live in a cage of scars. If life were fair, we would never have suffered what we suffered at all; having suffered it and survived, we’re still reacting to things that don’t exist anymore.”“But they did.”“Yes. I hate that they still define me.” Voice lower, she said to Bellusdeo, “I want that to change. I don’t know how to change it. But I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying.” Shaking her head, she forced herself to smile; it was surprisingly easy. There was something about Bellusdeo that she liked. “Home is a strange thing.”“What do you mean?”“We lose it, and we think it’s gone forever. That’s how I felt the first time I lost mine. It took me years to understand that I could find—and make—another. I couldn’t do it on my own, though; I don’t think—for me—home exists in isolation.”

“Success and failure are two edges of the same blade, two sides of the same coin. To fear one is to forever deny the possibility of the other.”

“It's always easier,' he offered at last, 'when you feel these things yourself; seeing them in other people reveals just how ugly they are.”

“What did she say?''She made her displeasure with his existence clear.''That's it?''She made some claims about how she was going to alleviate her displeasure.”

“It didn't matter. If she was to have any hope of saving Bellusdeo and Maggaron now, she needed to finish what she started; the anger and the self-recrimination would just have to wait. She'd no doubt she'd return to it later; unlike laundry, she'd never left self-recrimination undone.”

“On the other hand, the last week had pretty much been one waking nightmare after another; if this kept up, her dreams wouldn't have the power to terrify her.”

“I don't make the laws, I just enforce them.""Then remind me to introduce a new set of laws, since the ones we have clearly assume a level of common sense that's lacking.”

“Teela turned to Severn. "I'm having trouble remembering why I haven't strangled her yet."Severn shrugged. "I have that problem myself some days. At the moment, though, the only betting pool in the office seems to be on the Sergeant.""Ha-ha." Kaylin said with a distinct lack of cheer. And then, because she was a fiefling, "What odds?" He cuffed the top of her head.”

“No...if the world demanded their deaths in return for safety, she would have watched it burn.”

“Is this some sort of test?""Everything that doesn't kill you is.""Mind you," he added, "surviving doesn't always mean you passed.”

“When you have all eternity, the word hurry is relative.""And the guards, being mortal, have less of it, and their version of slugglish doesn't approach your version of fast?""Something very like that.”

“You'll be with me, won't you?""indeed.""Then what could go wrong?"Lord Sanabalis visibly grimaced. "You clearly do not believe in angry gods.”

“ Generally, I like to appear smart. I don't admit being stupid when there's any hope I'm not.”

“Stay," he said abruptly. "Stay, feed me. Read to me, if you like. Do not talk to me of death. Do not offer me your fear. I have fear of my own to drive me, and if my own fear is not strong enough to keep me from my duty, yours will only grieve me, girl. It will give me guilt and no rest, but it won't preserve my life.”

“What would this have been, if it had more power to give?""This may come as a surprise to you," he replied dryly, "But I am not an Ancient. Nor am I, human philosophy aside, a living construct.""Which means you don't know.""Which means, as you so succinctly put it, I do not know." - Kaylin & Tiamaris”

“Sanabalis never seemed to eat, and he deflected most of her questions about Dragon cuisine. Then again, he deflected most of her questions about Dragons, period. Which was annoying because he was one, and could in theory be authorative.”

“I'm missing something, aren't I?" "Brains", he snapped. "And survival instinct. The Hawklord's been waiting for you for three hours.""Tell him I'm dead.”

“Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?”“Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives.Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into eachcategory. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. Theyteach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life.”

“And I’ll stop with the lecture now. I don’t like people much—they irritate and annoy me. But I’mfascinated by them anyway.”

“The gods where like the weather; sometimes good, sometimes bad, and either way, always beyond her.”

“Manners,[...] are severely underappreciated in my opinion"."Oh?""Where practiced well, they remove the probability that someone in my position will be forced to go through the effort of killing someone in yours. Believe that on occasion that much death can become tedious.”