“...I was one of the haves, and one of the secrets of being a have is not wasting your time on empathy.”

“Envy nobody. It is the true secret of happiness, or at least the only one I know. (By Moonlight)”

“When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls. (...) You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that — then any time at all will be the right time for you.”

“But still I feel I waste a lot of time leaning on my elbow and thinking to myself, "alright sucker, now what?”

“I am a king's daughter,And if I cared to care,The moon that has no mistressWould flutter in my hair.No one dares to cherishWhat I choose to crave.Never have I hungered,For that I did not haveI am a kings daughter,And I grow old withinThe prison of my person,The shackles of my skin.And I would run awayAnd beg from door to door,Just to see your shadowOnce, and never more. ”

“When your life is all taking, what need to learn courtship? Carcharos’s passion for Jassi Belnarak deepened and darkened with every sleepless night, but it did not keep him from understanding that neither beneficence nor meek wistfulness would win her honestly. Power would have to do, after all; and I think that for the only time in that bad life, Carcharos may truly have regretted the necessity of forcing his will on another person. The moment can't have lasted long, but I think further that it may have been the closest Carcharos ever came to knowing love.”

“I would have chosen any other than this for my prison. A rhinoceros is as ugly as a human being, and it too is going to die, but at least it never thinks that it is beautiful.”