"The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. But Fortune is an ugly, two-faced goddess. When you have lived with her handiwork for half a generation, you hardly notice anymore. You forget that this is not the way life has to be. You cease to marvel at just how much evil man can conjure simply by existing."

"I picked up my five cards from the next deal. “This ain’t a hand, it’s a foot.”"

"Like most villains, he was wicked only most of the time and mainly in small-minded ways."

"Desperate people will do what they must to survive. Only a fool would expect the results to be pretty."

"Time is the most wicked of all villains."

"Sadly, after years of study, I realize that most history may pivot on personal considerations like that, not on the pursuit of ideals dark or shining."

"Though not as bad as most, he was going through that stage where he knew everything worth knowing and nothing his elders said—particularly if it bore any vaguely education hue—was worth hearing. He could not help that. It went with the age. And I was my age and could not help saying things I knew would do no good."

"We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods—probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us."

"“It would take an entire nation a thousand years to build something this vast. No monument so huge can be a good thing.” “I don’t understand.” “Only a very great evil could remain so single of purpose, so uncaring of cost, as to create something so ultimately useless.”"

"We are all the sum total of our pasts, good and evil."

"They (i. e., the peasants) could imagine no future more grim than their past."

"Death will find a way. Even the gods must pass."

"The best of the diviner breed are never wrong because they never set anything in stone."

"It is a saying of my people. Even Water sleeps. But Enemy never rests."

"“I still got all my limbs and I’m still breathing.” “Makes you a winner in the soldiering game.”"

"Somebody a lot smarter than me once said, “Put no trust in wizards.”"

"I must be driven. I figured that as long as I had to stay out there I ought to keep scouting around. Working in my sleep. Ought to have the Old Man double my pay. How much is two times a stab in the back?"

"I do hope that karma is the keystone of the universe—even if I have to come back as a banana slug myself."

"“They think you’re a witch. They lost everything because of a witch.” “Stupid thinking.” “Never any shortage of stupid, girl.”"

"Literacy is sorcery itself in the hinterland."

"No captive was smart enough to speak a language any of us knew. Talking loud or slow did not help."

"Might may not make right, but it makes victory."

"All men are born condemned, so the wise say. All suckle the breast of Death. All bow before that Shadow Monarch. That Lord in Shadow lifts a finger. A feather flutters to the earth. There is no reason in His song. The good go young. The wicked prosper. He is king of the Chaos Lands. His breath stills all souls."

"I am not religious. I cannot conceive of gods who would give a damn about humanity’s frothy carryings-on. I mean, logically, beings of that order just wouldn’t. But maybe there is a force for greater good, created by our unconscious minds conjoined, that becomes an independent power greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe, being a mindthing, it is not time-bound. Maybe it can see everywhere and everywhen and move pawns so that what seems to be today’s victory becomes the cornerstone of tomorrow’s defeat. Maybe weariness did things to my mind."

"I could not get my feelings straight. I did not believe in evil as an active force, only as a matter of viewpoint, yet I had seen enough to make me question my philosophy. If the Lady were not evil incarnate, then she was as close as made no difference."

"Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger."

"The list of cities lost was long and disheartening, even granting exaggeration by the reporters. Soldiers defeated always overestimate the strength of their foe. That soothes egos suspecting their own inferiority."

"Only this time it was just a brief rest, till the stars came out. They stared down with mockery in their twinkles, saying all our sweat and blood really had no meaning in the long eye of time. Nothing we did would be recalled a thousand years from now. Such thoughts infected us all. No one had any ideals or glory-lust left. We just wanted to get somewhere, lie down, and forget the war. The war would not forget us."

"I grinned. “The unwritten law of all armies, Captain. The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It’s the mortar holding an army together.”"

"“We all do that. In every day life it’s called making excuses.” True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them."

"Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from?"

"He is blind to the dead, to the burning villages, to the starving children. As is the Rebel. Two blind armies, able to see nothing but one another."

"I went back to staring tomorrow in the face. Better than looking backward. But tomorrow refused to shed its mask."

"He was a lawyer before he worked his way up to pimping."

"Fools can make an omen of anything in retrospect."

"There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight."

"My apprentices were exasperating. They were competing to see who was laziest."

"I began to back away. This is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed."

"Are lovers ever honest?"

"I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks."

"Dawn comes early when you wish it would not. The hours flash when you want them to drag."

"Why do sorcerers always use languages nobody understands? Even Goblin and One-Eye do it. Each has confided that he cannot follow the tongue the other uses. Maybe they make it up?"

"Slight gasp. “You grow too bold.” Didn’t I? “I’m sorry. Thinking out loud. An unhealthy habit known to be the cause of bruises and major hemorrhaging.”"

"The light overcame the shadow. But as always, the shadow left its taint on the victors."

"This soiree must have been so big that if held today, we’d call it a war. Or at least a riot. On and on. So-and-so of such-and-such, with Lady Who’s-is, sixteen titles, four of which made sense. By the time the heralds finished proclaiming everyone, the party must have died of encroaching senility."

"She is not one to disdain truth indefinitely only because it is unpleasant."

"“A teacher?” “Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which here is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.” “Interesting.” “Well. Yes. There is god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.” “Death?” “I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.” The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. “I understand.” “Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”"

"No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshipers’ description. I don’t see how they could survive their own insanity. But it’s not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny."

"The only exercise I get is jumping to conclusions."

"“Can you read?” I nodded. “Rules are posted over there. You got two choices. Obey them. Or be dead.”"