“If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.”

“Some thought he was quite wicked, but in truth, he was no more or less than any other crow: enamored of bright new things, and too clever to get them by the usual path.”

“This," said Laurent, "is a little more—"It was a word of sharp points: "—intimate," he said, "than ice." "Too intimate?" Damen said. Slowly, he was kneading Laurent's shoulders.He did not usually think of himself as someone with suicidal impulses.”

“Indeed. I have often thought that when a man selects one word over another he often reveals far more of himself than he intended.”

“A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.”

“What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.”