“The miracle left him dumbfounded, that his heart had not yet shirked its weary task of pumping his bored blood through his brain.”

“Well your full of cow pies up to your ears! I don't give way on the orders of rabble, or bow to Devall's uppity marshal. He can stuff his gold braid! Yes, up his tight arse where it will hurt the most, for all that I care for his posturing! These wagons will pass. Afterwards, you can shoot all the crossbolts you like, and ram yourselves straight to oblivion!”

“As a spirit schooled to power, his perception stems from one absolute. Universal harmony begins with recognition that the life in an ordinary pebble is as sacred as conscious selfhood.”

“My grandfather was sparing in his praise of apprentices. My grandfather insisted we think for ourselves and achieve for our own satisfaction. Deep study of the mysteries were their own tough path, he always said. To live for the approval of others was a pitfall that begged a false turning.”

“Mage-taught wisdom reproached him: any gift of power was two-edged.”

“All things were formed of energy, arrangements of bundled light that were subject to natural law. The awareness of this truth, defined to absolute perfection, granted the mage-trained their influence. To know a thing, to encompass its full measure in respect was to hold its secrets in mastery. Life-force was the basis of all power.”

“Let her own shortfalls, and not your vindictive perfectionism, be the quality that throws her to destruction.”