There are two sacred causes in this world,” he said, holding up his pinkie and ring ringer. “Chance and necessity. By chance I was there to help when you had need.
Why live in fear that he might find me disgusting someday, when I could make it happen right now?
He looked up at the reddening sky and said with a self-deprecating laugh, "You put me to shame, Seraphina. Your bravery always has." "It's not bravery; it's bullheaded bumbling." He shook his head, staring off into the middle distance. "I know courag...
I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who’d rather avoid them.
And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.
This is my mind's garden, I tend it; I order it. I have nothing to fear.
Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not.
Sir James waved a gnarled hand. "They're nothing but feral file clerks, dragons. They used to alphabetize the coins in their hoards.
...emotions fly humans toward art
Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.
I was feverish; I couldn’t keep down food. Orma stayed by me the entire time, and I suffered the illusion that behind his skin—behind everyone’s—was a hollow nothingness, an inky black void. He rolled up my sleeve to look at my arm, and I shr...
Who will kiss you? Who will rock you to sleep?" His voice was slow, drowsy. "You never did," I said, trying to tease him. "You were more father to me than my father, but you never did that." "Someone should. Someone should love you. I will bite him i...
I was just chased through St. Willibald’s, and you know why? Because I was kind to a quig. I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and then it turns out they don’t need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife o...
I scrupulously hide every legitimate reason for people to hate me, and it turns out they don’t need legitimate reasons. Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with.
I had felt the shot coming; I hadn’t realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition?
If it can be known, I want to know it.
I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature.
Claude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable.
