“One didn't stop to talk with creatures from one's nightmares.”

“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]”

“One man sees a riselka: his life forks there. Two men see a riselka: one of them shall die. Three men see a riselka: one is blessed, one forks, one shall die.One woman sees a riselka: her path comes clear to her. Two women see a riselka: one of them shall bear a child. Three women see a riselka: one is blessed, one is clear, one shall bear a child.”

“Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.”

“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.”

“Sometimes you didn't really arrive at a conclusion about your life, you just discovered that you already had.”

“There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true?”