“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

“Maybe I was just one of those people who couldn't rest easy unless things went catastrophically wrong.”

“Time is fluid, so the moments where everything feels perfect pass in a wink, and those where you're on your knees in despair drag on like the death of a thousand cuts.”

“People try to make sense of things, and if they don’t know the answers, they make them up, because for some, a wrong answer is better than none.”

“They say funerals are not for the dead but for the living. Those rites are what permit you to move on, so if you don’t deal with the remains, you can never deal with the memories. That might be true; we may have walked in their dust down on Venice Minor, but it’s not the same as a proper good-bye.”

“So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will bemagnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.”

“Don’t let them see you weak.”