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

“We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176]”

“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.”

“We must be what we are, or we become our enemies. ”

“How we remember changes how we have lived.Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”

“There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.”

“We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.”