“To dream is to starve doubt, feed hope.”

“He knew me in all the ways that truly mattered: the shape of my fears, the contours of my dreams.”

“A pathfinder's job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you're hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.”

“Hao Kan," I said gently, quietly, firmly as if it was a pact between the two of us. She blinked. I wasn't sure if she understood. Or if she believed she was beautiful. So I pointed at her and then to me. And I repeated with utter conviction, "Hao Kan." Those words, my pronouncement, won me the girl's slow nod. I nodded back. And when she smiled, wide and open, I tell you, there was nothing more beautiful that that.”

“But even quashed rebellions leave us different. Because freedom may be a forbidden fruit in tyrannies, but once tasted, it is unforgettable.”

“There is a time to study a map passionately, obsessively. To see where you've gone, where others have gone before you. To commit to memory every obstacle, every danger. Shakespeare had a term for this obsession: mappery. But there is a time, too, when you say, come dragons. I challenge you to find me.”

“No power was total, no power permanent, no power absolute.”