“Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. 'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble!”

“What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner."Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on."Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?""Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.The old man looked puzzled."He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time.""He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge."From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really.""Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely.”

“I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in His face.”

“Eventually he'd let the answering machine take over and had hidden in his studio. Where he's hidden all his life. From the monster. He could feel itin their bedroom now. He could feel its tail swishing by him. Feel its hot, fetid breath.All his life he knew if he was quiet enough, small enough, it wouldnn't see him. If he didn't make a fuss, didn't speak up, it wouldn't hear him, wouldn't hurt him. If he was beyond criticism and hid his cruelty with a smile and good deeds, it wouldn't devour him. By now he realized there was no hiding. It would always be there, and always find him. He was the monster.”

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.“Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.”

“A man may say, "From now on I'm going to speak the truth." But the truth hears him and runs away and hides before he's even done speaking.”