“Consider this: when you stand at the entry to a steel factory, you can make out through the smoke some men, some metal, the fires. The furnaces roar, the hammers crash; and the metalworkers who forge ingots, weapons, tools, and so on are completely ignorant of the real uses to which their products will be put. The workers can only refer to their products by conventional names. Well, that's where we all stand, all of us! Nobody can see the real character of what he creates because every knife blade may become a dagger, and the use to which an object is put changes both its name and its nature. Only our ignorance shields us from terrible responsibilities.”

“Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic.And what makes it magic is that we *choose* to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger.If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us.”

“Our past is the forge upon which we are hardened and tempered, to prepare us for the present. We are like a fine blade that must be hammered into shape before it can be ready to make its finest cuts.”

“If you haven't considered it already, consider it now: there is every possibility that some of us, or all of us, may live and triumph, only to stand trial for murder.”

“Money is like fire, an element as little troubled by moralising as earth, air, and water. Men can employ it as a tool or they can dance around it as if it were the incarnation of a god . . . It acquires its meaning from the uses to which it is put.”

“... I did not set out to be beloved and just, only strong."'A King can be better than that," the Prince insisted."And so we all begin, determined to better our fathers' performances, knowing we can change the very nature of humanity, make it better, cleaner. But then daggers strike in the night, and peasants revolt, and all manner of atrocities become a necessity as breakfast. Only Princes believe in the greater good. Kings know there is only Reign, and all things may be committed in its holy name...”