“In my experience, milady, we can never get back to exactly where we started, no matter how hard we try.”

“We have what we can hold, dear boy, and never let them see you flinch or falter.”

“It was suicide, wasn't it?""In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate.""Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip."Exactly, my lord.”

“I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right.You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her.It is imperfect.So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista.”

“Experience suggests it doesn't matter so much how you got here, as what you do after you arrive.”

“Identity. That's my elephant. The thought came with certainty, without the question mark on the end this time. Not fame, exactly, though recognition was some kind of important cement for it. But what you were was what you did. And I did more, oh yes. If a hunger for identity were translated into, say, a hunger for food, he'd be a more fantastic glutton than Mark ever dreamed of being. Is it irrational, to want to be so much, to want so hard it hurts? And how much, then, was enough?”

“Hunting hawks did not belong in cages, no matter how much a man coveted their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They were far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful.”