“To know the rules of steel you must be a master of everything around you; you must know every law that has been created for our use. If one eventually learns to master these laws, humbly, then one can encounter what is known as a higher law, that is, transcending steel’s natural ability into something supernatural. That small window of transcendence is where you find the Davinian’s mastery of steel, where the ground and sky come together. That’s why nothing in this earth is sharper than a Davinian blade. It’s not the steel that makes the edge, but the knowledge of the supernatural. The Davinian sharpens his sword by dipping into this higher reality.”

“What do you have against happiness?” said the man.“Nothing, I guess.”“Then don’t talk about things you don’t know. There’s no reason you shouldn’t let your feelings flourish. Is it not the ultimate act to feel the greatest happiness? If pain is evil, then is not happiness good? Happiness is how we measure the worth of good things. The more pleasure we feel, the happier we are.”“Yes, but true goodness transcends what one can eat and feel,” said Jeskun, remembering his teacher’s words. “I don’t disagree that happiness is the greatest good; I just don’t agree with the objects of your pleasure. The ultimate pleasure is infinite, and all you have to offer me are things that rot. Your happiness, your pleasure, is merely temporary, and in the end it only leads to more suffering.”-Along the Many Houses of Damnation.”

“You’ve been nothing but scared since you first entered this forest,” said Wend as she put down the last of the leaves on the trap. “And when you saw me, you turned white as a ghost.”“That’s not because I’m scared,” said Jeskun, taking Dahkar and hiding him behind some trees. “I just--never saw anyone like you.”“You’ve never seen a girl?”“No, not that,” said Jeskun, frustrated.“I’ve just never--you have green hair and eyes and green lashes and green freckles. It’s all green, like the trees. I’ve never seen that.”“And you have yellow hair,” said Wend, inspecting her blade, not impressed with his reasoning. “This world is full of many colors.”

“The path that we are all called to travel is never the easiest path,” said Vohro as he strode up to the boy. “If ever you find yourself strolling down the road of life, know that you are truly lost.”-R. Janvier del Valle, The Abandoned Asylum of the Good Doctor Fangtasahd”

“It’s not that easy,” said the merchant. “The words are there, but they like to hide from the sun. I can’t say I blame them for doing so, for the sun is such a bother, lighting up everything, revealing everything. Some things need keeping in the dark. This book knows much about that.”

“You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful? As for laws, a parrot can repeat them word for word. Their spirit is something else again. As for governing, one must first be lowest before being highest.”

“Supernatural fiction contains its own generic borderland: a neutral territory, which Tzvetan Todorov calls 'the fantastic,' between 'the marvelous' and 'the uncanny.' According to Todorov, 'The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.' Once the event is satisfactorily explained (and sometimes it is never explained), we have left the fantastic for an adjacent genre - either 'the uncanny,' where the apparently supernatural is revealed as illusory, or 'the marvelous,' where the laws of ordinary reality must be revised to incorporate the supernatural. As long as uncertainty reigns, however, we are in the ambiguous realm of the fantastic.”