“The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.”

“...the old are destroying the young by them to die in distant fields, and in response the young are destroying themselves.”

“Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.”

“If women had power, what would men be but women who can't bear children? And what would women be but men who can?...I mean, men give her [a queen] power. They let her use their power. But it isn't hers, is it? It isn't because she's a woman that she's powerful, but despite it.”

“You know as well as I do, damn you. Like it or not I seem to have grown a heart. I have absolutely no use for the damned thing, but there it sits, demanding Elinor. I can't live without her.”

“Karen told me about an old woman who was the last surviving inhabitant of one of the Hermit Islands. She was the only one left who could speak her tribe's language, but the anthropologists didn't realize it and never bothered to learn it from her. When the old woman died, the language died with her.”