“Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.”

“Khan Tegas never looked at me. I'm a mucker maid. I guess I needed to be reminded of that. So, good. Fine. Sometimes my fancy gets to floating inside me, threatening to carry me away like a leaf on a wind. Better to be a stone.”

“Sometimes instinct isn't fancy.”

“I was sorry to lose it, and if you make me another one, I promise not to get taken captive by bandits and have to use it to save my life.”

“Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye. ”

“The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.”

“Time is a wind that keeps blowing in my face and mumbling words that don't make sense.”