“It was a simple lesson, really. He could never, ever allow misplaced ideals to seduce him. He would not employ death as a tool.”

“He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.”

“He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think of himself in this way.”

“A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares.--Louis Auchincloss”

“No one would ever like him; he would never be accused of being unfair.”

“And the man clad in black and silver with a silver rose upon him? He would like to think that he has learned something of trust, that he has washed his eyes in some clear spring, that he has polished an ideal or two. Never Mind. He may still be only a smart-mouthed meddler, skilled mainly in the minor art of survival, blind as ever the dungeons knew him to the finer shades of irony. Never mind, let it go, let it be. I may never be pleased with him.”