“She did this not out of fear of him, but out of pity. Because she had come to see the ultimate terrible truth behind all others. Which was that the stupidity and avarice and hatred of mankind had finally begun to make him also stupid, avaricious, hating, and cruel beyond reason. Even though he was a god, a god of love.”

“I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special little death.”

“Azhrarn the Beautiful," said Chuz lovingly, "it is your beautiful madness I have come to see.”

“It's lovely. I hate it.”

“We all have our dreams. May we find them, and God have mercy on us when we do.”

“He sat by her, watching every gesture she made, as if he would paint her portrait afterward.”

“She was what an aristocrat should be, porcelain and silk, unreachable, gracious, untainted by the dust of all this common death.”