“She looked into the eyes of many of them as they passed away, like some sort of angel of death. Some were frightened, some relieved, most just confused. She served as the arbiter of their passage, an earthly Charon. Or perhaps a Valkyrie, carrying fallen heroes to Valhalla. But she’d seen no heroes, no one worthy of Valhalla.”

“The angel of death can hardly have friends. And the prom, what about Danny? He can hardly have a Valkyrie for his date.”

“It’s who I am. I can’t just pretend to be some normal kid. That won’t work either. They’ll never leave me alone. But here’s what I know: a block is a strike, and the more an adversary thinks he has succeeded, the more devastating the strike will be.”

“I’m sorry about this,' she said to the dead woman, 'but I’m gonna need your clothes.”

“Hatred could not be the basis of her resolution to fight. It provided no access to her own qi, her vital spirit. That was the deepest truth she knew about fighting. It’s what she learned from her father and Sensei: fight from the peaceful place inside, from her father’s place.”

“She is not the princess locked away in the fortress and you are not some hero who's going to save her.”

“all that a world could be, no matter what,is, somewhere, in some way.fullness of possibles, consistency.no matter which talking head, minefor example, adjacent to my bodyandwhy notagainst my face, the angel's, the black shadow face itself,but all the seats are taken, all the worldsunavailableto you.”