“Bury it with me. Time was I thought it was a blessing and a curse. But it’s only a curse, and I ain’t about to curse some other poor bastard with it. Time was I thought it was reward and punishment both. But this is the only reward for men like us.’ And Whirrun nodded down towards the bloody spear-shaft. ‘This or … just living long enough to become nothing worth talking of. Put it in the mud, Craw.’ And he winced as he heaved the grip into Craw’s limp hand and pressed his dirty fingers around it.‘I will.’‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”

“When God plans to bless a man, he takes this poor time-cursed creature into His hand and says., My son, I breath into you eternity and immortality.”

“Ain't it God's sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?"Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. "Every sword's a curse, boy.”

“You too heavy a man for me to carry...I done carried heavy men and I know how they can break your back. I ain’t got but this one back and I don’t want it broke again...”

“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”

“You said a curse is only a curse if I allowed myself to me cursed by it. You said... I had it in my power to free myself of any curse - that curses were preludes to blessings...”