“You're a Dark One," said Anton. "All you see in everything is evil, treachery, trickery.""All I do is not close my eyes to them," Edgar retorted. "And that's why I don't trust Zabulon. I distrust him almost as much as I do Gesar. I can even trust you more—you're just another unfortunate chess piece who happens by chance to be painted a different color from me. Does a white pawn hate a black one? No. Especially if the two pawns have their heads down together over a quiet beer or two.""You know," Anton said in a slightly surprised voice, "I just don't understand how you can carry on living if you see the world like that. I'd just go and hang myself.""So you don't have any counterarguments to offer?"Anton took a gulp of beer too. The wonderful thing about this natural Czech beer was that even if you drank lots of it, it still didn't make your head or your body feel heavy... Or was that an illusion?"Not a single one," Anton admitted. "Right now, this very moment, not a single one. But I'm sure you're wrong. It's just difficult to argue about the colors of the rainbow with a blind man. There's something missing in you... I don't know what exactly. But it's something very important, and without it you're more helpless than a blind man.”

“Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe it, not in my truth, not in Geser's. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn't make you shudder. What's bad about Dark freedom is not just that it's freedom from others. That's another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can't feel any pain in your chest—call for help. Only by then it'll be too late”

“Of course we got drunk!" Semyon said. "It's okay to get drunk, Anton. If you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine—that's all for the heart.""So what's vodka for?""For the soul. If it's hurting real bad”

“We'll get into the plane and you'll have a cup of coffee, even a sip of brandy is permissible. And you'll think. Think hard. So hard I can hear your brains creaking. And it will be very good if by the time we reach Edinburgh you already know how to get the Crown of All Things. Because we don't have any time to spare. Only twelve hours until the bomb goes off.""You bastard," I said."No, I'm a highly effective personnel manager," Edgar said, with a smile.”

“The only thing that restrains you is fear, Anton Gorodetsky. For yourself, or for people—that's not important. But we are restrained by horror. And that is why we observe the Treaty.”

“You are the most incredible being I have ever met. And its not just because of the things my grandfather did to you. You're strong all on your own. You care about all of them, even if you don't really know what love even means. Eden is a wonderful place but it wouldn't be anywhere near the same without you. I know I don't fit in there, that people still don't fully trust me. But you're there so its all okay. When I'm with you, I feel something I didn't think it was still possible to feel in this world. I feel alive like there is still hope in this world. Like maybe things will still be okay someday.”

“There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That's what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place.”