“Somehow this is what I wanted to happen. I was holding my ground under attack from my enemies, lashing out at them until they killed me, not giving a damn.”

“I don't give a damn about where I happen to be, provided nothing stops me from going into my mind.”

“Once I made weapons carved from stone, I tied the weight to a wooden handle, a club to break the bones of my enemy.Then I became wiser...and sharpened the stone to a point and then fastened it to a stick; my arrow. I bent wood and hitched string to it; my bow. I kill my enemy with skillThen I became wiser...and made weapons forged from steel and took care to sharpen the blade of my sword. I kill my enemy with a stroke.Then I became wiser...and made the rifle that would, by exploding gunpowder, shoot balls of lead faster than the eye could see. I kill my enemy with but the pull of a trigger.Then I became wiser...and I built flying machine that could transport bombs to drop over the homes of my enemy. I kill my enemy from the sky.Then I became wiser...and created the drone, now I can guide a plane by remote control from one country and kill my enemy in another. I am a proficient killerThen I became wiser... and I found a way to split the atom and found the power of God hidden within. I kill the ground, scorch the sky, pollute the wind and kill my enemy with the push of a button.Then I became wiser...And I found that there is nothing more foolish than a "Wise Man of War”

“So Wolf, what did you do?” – Sundown“You mean before or after I soiled my jeans? Which, by the way, I want kudos for coming back in the cab when I could have gone home. The foot valve was stuck. It doesn’t happen often. But it can happen as you just saw. If you’re lucky you can pop it back out from the cab. Obviously, given the horrors of this night, I wasn’t lucky so I had to crawl under the damn thing at ninety miles an hour and pound it out from underneath. I don’t ever want to hang like that under a speeding vehicle again. I swear I just lost eight of my nine lives.” – Sasha “What is it with you the cat analogies?” – Sundown”

“So instead of ignoring the pain, I called out to it, reaching for more. Pain is part of who I am. It’s the defining characteristic of a Shifter’s transformation. Pain is what I suffer from my enemies. It is what I deal out to those who break our laws. It is what I protect my charges from. Pain is what I inherited from fate, that fickle bitch who gave me a mouth and fists, then put me in a world that wanted only my womb and my cradled arms.”

“He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag."My God," he said. "What happened?""I found out one may check out twenty books at a time from the school library.”