“She had managed to go almost three weeks without being late. Admittedly on two of those days she'd perambulated around the office like someone doing a good imitation of the walking dead - but she'd been timely walking dead, damn it.”

“It didn't matter. If she was to have any hope of saving Bellusdeo and Maggaron now, she needed to finish what she started; the anger and the self-recrimination would just have to wait. She'd no doubt she'd return to it later; unlike laundry, she'd never left self-recrimination undone.”

“I'm missing something, aren't I?" "Brains", he snapped. "And survival instinct. The Hawklord's been waiting for you for three hours.""Tell him I'm dead.”

“ Generally, I like to appear smart. I don't admit being stupid when there's any hope I'm not.”

“On the other hand, the last week had pretty much been one waking nightmare after another; if this kept up, her dreams wouldn't have the power to terrify her.”

“Can you hold off on the whole war thing until after I'm dead?”

“Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger. But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who said that? She couldn’t remember now. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was called aging. They reached toward if as if they were satellites in unstable orbits. And then when they got there, they were just dead. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts.”