“The message, which one fall or another of the coin would eventually give him, was how to get himself out of his chamber and into Nepenthe's, so that he could tell her why he had not come to tell her why he had not come.”

“What are the thorns really telling her? It's why she won't let us see them, why she clings to them--or they cling to her--as though she got herself buried in a bramble thicket and she can't get out and we can't get in to free her.”

“I came back.""Suppose you hadn't?""I came back! Why can't you understand, instead of thinking as though your brains are made of oak. Athol's son, with his hair and eyes and vision -""No!" Tristan said sharply. Eliard's fist, raised and knotted, halted in midair. Morgon dropped his face again against his knees. Eliard shut his eyes."Why do you think I'm so angry?" he whispered."I know.""Do you? Even - even after six months I still expect to hear her voice unexpectedly, or see him coming out of the barn, or in from the fields at dusk. And you? How will I know, now, that when you leave Hed, you'll come back? You could have died in that tower for the sake of a stupid crown and left us watching for the ghost of you, too. Swear you'll never do anything like that again.""I can't.""You can."Morgon raised his head, looked at Eliard. "How can I make one promise to you and another to myself? But I swear this: I will always come back.""How can you -""I swear it.”

“He closed his grade book and asked hopefully, "What inspired you? Was it Hawthorne?"I stared at him. He had to be kidding.”

“The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there”

“The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there. -Cyrin”

“He exuded ambiguities she decided, that was his fascination.His mouth spoke; his eyes said something other: his smile belied everything....He played with the language of the Circle of Days like a child with an arsenal of twigs.... His music said otherwise it seemed to echo through time out of a past as old as the stones on the hill. He lied with every note he played. Or in his music he finally told the truth.”