“Use words to please, to instruct, to soothe. Then stop speaking.”

“I learned regret in the ruins of Tarbfhlaith. I regretted that ambition had ruled my heart instead of affection for my kin. And with the lesson of regret came the gratitude for having life still to move my lips and limbs, and to speak kind words to and embrace those I may not see again on this sweet-smelling earth. I learned that I cannot wait to love what is in my presence, for it or I may well be gone tomorrow. To some, such as Giannon, this lesson poisons the heart with bitterness. But such bitterness has no value and is, in fact, cowardly. For bitterness risks nothing.”

“It is better to listen to a crow that lives in trees than to a learned man who lives only in ideas.”

“It is noble to pity a man who is cruel because he is weak, but it is idiotic and dangerous to allow him to have power.”

“Power does not willingly give up its place to truth.”

“I would live in a world of Christ-like humans, but not one full of Christians, may God forgive me.”

“Perhaps it is weariness that causes seers not to act on what they see; for whereas the wisdom of the world can be vast, it includes the many futilities. Ideas do not have legs with which to run and hands with which to craft. They are wisps of smoke floating into a universe of pain and ignorance that overwhelm the capacity of one small human body and the mind trapped inside it.”