“Precision is a precise art. Poignancy is pre-eminent and precludes prevarication.”

“Envy shrugged. 'Can no value be found in good intentions?''What, precisely, are you trying to justify? And to me, or yourself?'She glared, then quickened her pace. 'You're no fun at all,' she sniffed as she pulledahead, 'and presumptuous as well. I'm going to talk with Tool, his moods don'tswing!'No, they just hang there, twisting in the wind.”

“For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?' 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.' 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp,.. 'that is precisely the point. That's their value - their ability to adapt -' 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.”

“It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, 'to come to know a stranger's pain.”

“Desires should never be justified,' Tehol said, wagging a finger. 'All you end up doing is illuminating the hidden reasons by virtue of their obvious absence.”

“Life's final lesson,the only truthful one buried beneath a layered skein of delusions.Sooner or later,she now understood,we are all naught but food.Wolves or worms,the end abrupt or lingering,it matter not in the least.”

“Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.”