“If you so much as start to bow or anything like that, Dave, I'll beat you up. I swear I will.”

“Dave hung up. And unplugged the phone. With a fierce and bitter pain he stared at it, watching how, over and over again, it didn't ring.”

“Full moon is falling through the sky.Cranes fly through clouds.Wolves howl. I cannot find restBecause I am powerlessTo amend a broken world.Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.”

“Eyyia?" said her husband, and Eliane bet Danel heard the mangling of her name as music."You sound like a marsh frog," she said, moving to stand before his chair.By the flickering light she saw him smile."Where have you been," she asked. "My dear. I've needed you so much.""Eyyia," he tried again, and stood up. His eyes were black hollows. They would always be hollows.He opened his arms and she moved into the space they made in the world, and laying her head against his chest she permitted herself the almost unimaginable luxury of grief.”

“I will not say I am sorry, but I can tell you that I grieve.”

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”

“You have no idea how dearly I wish you were of my blood. My daughter, granddaughter. Will you allow me to take pride in what you are?"-- Sandre to Catriana”