“Beauty is at its most poignant when the cold hand of Death holds poised to wither it imminently.”

“I had begun to think my ripening body would wither untasted on the vine.”

“Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake.”

“I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand.”

“There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.”

“I seek words of such surpassing beauty that they might melt the hardest heart of stone.”

“How do you want to die, Admiral? We are D'Angeline. At the hand of numbers, or dreams?”