“She was grieving the loss of her youth, the closing down of possibilities as life became what it was rather than what it might have been.”

“There are two types of women in the world, Beattie, those who do things and those who have things done to them.”

“Discontentment shows up when we focus on what we can't have rather than what we do have.”

“The fact that she was still alive felt wrong, out of balance. She didn't feel special, or protected, or gods-bound. She thought the gods had acted to protect the roan, and she had just been along for the ride. It was the roan who was special, not she.I should be dead, she thought. If she was dead, then all would have been settled. The warlord's men would have been satisfied to see her body swept away, the roan would have been safe from Beck's whip, the ghost of tyhe man she had killed could have gone to his rest. There was a rounding off - a justice - in her death. But alive, no one was satisfied and no one was safe.”

“The desire to know the future gnaws at our bones. That is where it started, and might have ended, years ago.I had cast the stones, seeing their faces flicker and fall: Death, Love, Murder, Treachery, Hope. We are a treacherous people - half of our stones show betrayal and violence and death from those close, death from those far away. It is not so with other peoples. I have seen other sets that show only natural disasters: death from sickness, from age, the pain of a broken heart, loss in childbirth. And those stones are more than half full with pleasure and joy and plain, solid warnings like "You reap what you sow" and "Victory is not the same as satisfaction."Of course, we live in a land taken by force, by battle and murder and invasion. It is not so surprising that our stones reflect our history.”

“When guys are horny, they'll think with the head in their pants rather than the one on their shoulders.”

“There is no activity that is somehow more Christian than another. God looks at the heart, and that is the good part that Mary knew. he simply asks us to come as we are and to be willing, open to receive whatever he might have for us this day. That is what it means to live a graceful life.”