“Your body is full of rage. Every sinew. It is easy to read. You speak volumes with a clenched fist.”

“Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.”

“We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it.”

“If we are pack, then conquest is our sustenance, sister.He plunged his hand into the coywolv’s frame. With a wet tearing, the heart came out, glistening and full of blood, veins and arteries torn. The muscle of life. Tool held it out to her. “Our enemies give us strength.” Blood ran from his fist. Mahlia saw the challenge in the half-man’s eye. She limped over to the battle-scarred monster and held out her hand. The heart was surprisingly heavy as Tool poured it into her palm. She lifted the muscle to her lips and bit deep. Blood ran down her chin.”

“It’s still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we’d be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We’d be rich and they’d be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They’re all full of it. Nothing balances out.”

“Lock it away,” the half-man whispered. “You feel, after. Not now. Now you are a soldier. Now you do your duty for your pack. If you break, your Mouse will die, and you with him. Feel, after. Not now.”

“Knowledge is always two-edged. For every benefit, there is hazard. For every good, evil.”