“Silent," the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. "Silent as a blinded ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.”

“Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings?”

“For, "Yes," he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life.”

“Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”

“When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.”

“The past is no further away than the last breath you took.”

“It was hard to reconcile the drumbeats and lifted voices in the night with my memories of flames and the screams of dying men. How could humanity range so effortlessly from the sublime to the savage and back again?”