“You have only to begin, Lir. Mercy breeds mercy as slaughter breeds slaughter. We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.”

“These soldiers had done what they had done, and been done unto in return. This was how it went.In the cycle of slaughter, reprisal begat reprisal, forever.”

“What can a soldier do when mercy is treason, and he is alone in it?”

“The choice I mean is to protect our own innocents from the seraphim, instead of slaughtering theirs.""There are no innocent seraphim, said the wolf.""That's what they say when they kill our children.”

“Mercy, she had discovered, made mad alchemy: a drop of it could dilute a lake of hate.”

“War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here." She touched his chest and felt a rush of love for the heart that moved his blood, for his smooth skin and his scars and his unsoldierly tenderness. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and said, "We are the beginning.”

“We dreamed together of the world remade.”