“None of the characters in (the story) were distinguished ones -- not even the lion.He was an old lion, prepared from birth to lose his life rather than to leave it. But he had the dignity of all free creatures, and so he was allowed his moment. It was hardly a glorious moment.The two men who shot him were indifferent as men go, or perhaps they were less than that. At least they shot him without killing him, and then turned the unsconscionable eye of a camera upon his agony. It was a small, a stupid, but a callous crime.”

“He knew all the stories. His grandfather had given them to him when he sat between the old man’s knees as a child. It was a comfort, though, to hear them again. To call them to mind. All these stories that made him more than just a vintner and more than just a man who carried a spear whom other men were willing to follow. More than just a man who lay dying. The stories made him one of the People, who would never die.”

“Thomas looked around and tried not to let his duty turn him bitter. These were good men, and he would not leave them behind. He had chosen this, an unselfish life.”

“His soul is in his stories. I once asked him who inspired him to create his characters, and his answer was no one. That all his characters were himself.”

“Todd says that the doctor "was rather horrified because we passed a German who had had his head shot off, but his arms and legs were still waving about and strange noises were coming out of him, and i thought even the doctor was a bit turned over by that.”

“There were only ever two kinds of people in the world for Valentine," she said "Those who were fir the Circle and those who were against it. The latter were his enemies, and the former were his weapons in his arsenal. I saw him try to turn each of his friends, even his own wife, into a weapon for the Cause—and you want me to believe he wouldn't have done the same with his own son?" She shook her head. "I knew him better than that." For the first time, Maryse looked at him with more sadness than anger. "You are an arrow shot directly into the heart of the Clave, Jace. You are Valentine's arrow. Whether you know it or not.”