“To bond to any animal was to promise oneself that future pain”

“Leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life-do you enjoy unending pain? There is no shame in walking away from bones. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you.”

“One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.”

“One can only walk so far from one's true self before the bond either snaps, or pulls one back.”

“Perhaps once one realised how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable.”

“But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die”

“Your future. It awaits only you, to live it and to write it.”