"The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will forever after hobble through life."
"But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die"
"We were both smiling, in that bittersweet way one does when imagining something the heart longs for and the head would dread."
"I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group."
"Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust."
"To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group."
"His absence seemed a solid thing, a burden I must carry in addition to my grief... Yet I knew I would continue to live. Sometimes that knowledge seemed the worst part of my loss."
"...You won't even see what is put right on the table before you. Men. If it was raining soup you'd be out there with a fork."
"...some secrets beg to be betrayed. The secret of undeclared love is like that."
"I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways."
"Still I promise myself, "Next time I will do better" in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered a "next time."
"There are few things so tender as a man's dignity."