“The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.”

“Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain.”

“But to Ezail, gifted with acceptance, it was only another facet of the riotous marvel of the earth. For all was marvelous there, was and is still, but humanity becomes inured to repetitive amazements - that the sun may rise, that a tiny seed may become a tree or a man, that life, coming from nowhere, sets us to moving like clockwork, and going out again leaves us to sleep. Or else, as then, takes us away with it, who knows? But we are used to it all, dawn and growth, living and dying. It takes a dragon on houseroof to wake us up now - and then, too. But to Ezail, all was wonder and no single item more than another: Dawns and dragons were one.”

“What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and Death are only the games we play in it.”

“When I write, I go to live inside the book. By which I mean, mentally I can experience everything I’m writing about. I can see it, hear its sounds, feel its heat or rain. The characters become better known to me than the closest family or friends. This makes the writing-down part very simple most of the time. I only need to describe what’s already there in front of me. That said, it won’t be a surprise if I add that the imagined worlds quickly become entangled with the so-called reality of this one.Since I write almost every day, and I think (and dream) constantly about my work, it occurs to me I must spend more time in all these places than here.”

“She could not mourn. She could no longer weep grasping the essence of annihilation, she wished only to cease, to be no more, as if sunk in some profound sleep devoid of wakening.”

“Israbel smiled once more. It was difficult to take your gaze away from her mouth - unless you looked into her eyes; and then you could only look at those... ("Israbel")”