I rode a horse, didn’t I, when I had one? Was it because I was better than the horse that I bent it to my will? I’d used dogs to hunt for me, and hawks on occasion. What right had I to command them? There I sat, stripping the hide off a porcupine to eat it. I spoke slowly. ‘Are we better than this porcupine that we are about to eat? Or is it only that we have bested it today?
All of history, a great wheel, turning inexorably. Just as seasons come and go, just as the moon moves endlessly through her cycle, so does time. The same wars are fought, the same plagues descend, the same folk, good or evil, rise to power. Humanity is trapped on that wheel, doomed endlessly to repeat the mistakes we have we have already made. Unless someone comes to change it.
Wherever there is change, a clever man can find a profit.
My dream was dead in my arms.
The only lie I ever told her was my undoing, and hers, and the stablemaster’s. Such is the power of a lie given to one you love.
I like to leave things tidy. One must leave so many things incomplete in life that I take pleasure in finishing those I can.
I didn’t want to be sad. I wanted to be angry. Angry hurt less.
No hardship endured is a loss. Someone will learn from it. Someone profits from it.
A bad end is just a new beginning.
Humans lived and died in a ridiculously short amount of time. Perhaps that was why they made so much noise when they were alive. Perhaps it was the only way they could convince one another of their significance.
To go without solitude is like going without salt.
He wished his own respect for her was enough to make her see her own worth, and he recognized the selfishness of that wish. He could not be her entire world.
The way she spoke, the way she thought, reflected the books they had shared. It was not that she had become wiser; wisdom had shone in her from the start. Now she had the words for her thoughts. She had been like a lantern flame burning behind a sooty glass. Now the glass was clear and her light shone forth.
You will change. I think. Not all change is bad. Change is seldom good or bad; it’s only change. A tadpole becomes a frog. A poker is beaten into a blade. A chicken becomes meat. In a dream, I saw a feather slowly hammered into a blade. I saw the hard nut crack and become a mighty tree. I saw the young doe slain and cut into meat. You will become something different tonight.
Vanity is such a strange thing. They mourned me, and I was warmed that they loved me.
Reality is often unkind to legends.
Always behave as if you are the person you wish to be perceived as.
Because she felt no shame at all, you think it must all belong to you. People like her are so adept at passing on blame.
But when the enemy is finally driven far from your shore, and your houses are restored and your fields begin to yield and your flocks to increase, why, then it becomes time to find fault with your neighbors again.
Stop blaming yourself. Someone deceived you and hurt you. You don’t need to take on the burden of that. The man who committed the offense is at fault, not the person he wronged.