"As for their healers and their worship of gold books of old lore, there had been tribal stories of this, too, all nonsense, as anything chattered by the ill-informed must be."

"Brother, sister, only words; but this, a reality, a destroyer at the gate. What could it have mattered, after all, to celebrate her hungry youth, and his, before the sword fell on her? All the plots and schemes, the moralities and codes of men, seemed dust in the face of death."

"That evening I met a black witch with a red cat, walking on a headland above the sea. I had reached the sea unexpectedly, but the sea is unexpected in any event to one who has never known it. You think it land at first, or sky, and penultimately mist. Then you realize a vast azure mass of water lies like a dragon in the sun’s last rays, breathing and shifting on the beaches."

"He showed no fear. It seemed that, at the commencement, his race had known gods and no other. Gods had bound and ill treated and slaughtered and played with them. Gods were a fact, as were the sun and the shaking of the earth. Just another terrible reality."

"I had a rare wine in my blood. Expiation was over, guilt washed out, terror canceled."

"We see what we have always seen. If it seems, it is."

"Precognition or self-deception?"

"The countryside meant grain and herds, and a river meant fish. And if the sky meant anything, it meant a cruel God who took no notice of their pains and chastised them if they sinned."

"I said, “When you are on your deathbed, Erran, pray that you never meet me in the place you are going to.”"

"Dust had dimmed only a fraction, not enough. Decay had brushed with its rotten fingers not nearly all it should. It was an enchanted sweet, stuck in the throat of time."

"Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then."

"I had not yet learned the lesson that when you are forever telling yourself that such and such is worth the price, then the price is too high and has been paid too often."

"The sea was a phenomenon I had never clapped eyes on for myself, yet it seemed, from the tales, a destination ultimate and uncompromising. The ocean’s edge, the brink of the land; the lip of Chaos."

"There is one sound way a man can bind a woman to him, the same way she will bind him, and with the same rope."

"Resist. Come, you’re tough enough, my lady, aren’t you, if you beg for death rather than inflict evil?"

"“What’s Hell?” inquired Wild-Eye. “You should visit before you pass judgement on a place. And have you never heard it said, the Dark One is a gentleman?”"

"To fall suddenly sick when you have never been ill is a hard lesson. If it teaches anything, it teaches you that you must not trust to the thing you know, that it is better to build on shifting sand than the rock which may confound you on the day it shatters."

"For, though sometimes worshipping gods, the Yunea did not permit itself to stray too far onto the abstract path of sheer faith. An ambience of security was all the aristocrats required, a guarantee that fate loved them."

"The harshest lesson of all was that which ran contrary to the teaching of his own personality."

"“But what am I to do?” cried the Prince. “What you feel you must,” said the Theel. “That’s the only thing to do at any time.”"

"The Prince then remembered the white-haired Theel in the Castle of Bone, who had also been kind, if a little odd, and he wondered why such nice creatures always seemed to live in bad places with wicked things going on all around them. “That’s easy,” said the girl, seeming to read his thoughts as the other Theel had done. “The bad places are where we can do the most good.”"

"But among the aristocrats whose existence could be lengthily prolonged into three or four hundred spans, boredom came to be the killer, a bizarre running down, a sort of decline and decay, nonphysical but fatal."

"“I can’t guess,” said Olvia, “why he accepted my invitation. If I had realized he would, I would never have sent it.”"

"Ceedres was her god. To be happy, she must worship him, and let him destroy her, and take pleasure in it."

"In our place, we can hardly go backward, but neither should we ignore the nakedness of humanity before the huge-wheeled vehicle of progress. We have too much to give, and far too much to learn, to throw ourselves away."

"She had no reason not to believe in the impossible. Desperation was always ready to pray for miracles."

"In the partial silence, the ocean asserted itself, waves hurled loudly against rock, slithering back with smashed spines, then, healed by immersion, hurled forward again."

"Self-love is neither fantasy nor vulgar joke. The totality of the “I,” the inbuilt survival and self-protective trait, is one of the most unshakable syndromes known to psycho-science."

"It was idiotic to be superstitious."

"If she had supposed the gods ever listened, she would have prayed."

"I will suppose that all humankind have souls, a condition which, when sober, I do not hold."

"Of the rest, nothing further is said, save that lovers love and live and, in due season, as all men must, they also die. And so with Ezail and Chavir who had been Sovaz and Oloru, Azhriaz and Chuz. For such was and is mortal life, mortal death. But for love, who can predict or measure, plot, ascribe, or declare an end. Love is one of the immortals."

"The gods’ inventions are notorious by their errors."

"He took her virginity with the gentle care of love, and with love’s glorious violence."

"To be static was never wise. Cobwebs clung to walls which stood. Men must journey, for in motion lay the seed, or at least the symbol of progress."

"Nothing can be learned without some measure of risk, and, more vital still, of patience."

"Like many a longed-for gift, it was, in possession, unwelcome."

"“Your beauty leaves me breathless,” said Pereban. “Yet you find the breath to say so.”"

"“We are taught that the gods do not care for us,” said Pereban the priest. “Therefore we must seek for guidance in our own selves.”"

"His creed, both cosmic and precise, had a flexible simplicity which, usually, was soon harnessed and complicated by his devotees, or those who had picked up some smattering."

"Finding in himself a profound strain of yearning, Pereban had mistaken it for religion. He entered the temple and dedicated himself to the worship of the goddess. Thereafter her statue—a roughhewn lump of rock with painted blobs for eyes and black wool for hair—so disappointed him that he kneeled to it, and beat himself regularly, every morning."

"The demons had invented love. There needs to be said no more."

"But in the mental overcast of that town, such things went rigidly unremarked, save through their irrelevance. For life was only a series of pitfalls, not to be enjoyed or celebrated. The gods chastised pleasure just as they ignored suffering."

"“In the land of my childhood there was a saying, as follows: ‘The black rose does not anywhere grow. Therefore let us fondly believe in the blooming of the black rose.’”… “Where I shall feast presently,”said Azhrarn, “black roses are woven in the garlands. Enlighten them therefore in your childhood’s land: The black rose blooms. No longer believe in the black rose.”… “Zhoreb—what shall we do?” “There is nothing to be done. Demons exist.” And then Zhoreb smiled and added under his breath, “Therefore we need not believe in them.”"

"“Why,” she said, “did they leave their kingdom to us?” “As well ask why they brought our ancestors to this star. Oh, yes, I think our races were taken from some other planet entirely, to be their toy. If we guess them to be gods, why stint them? Their avarice and callousness would be gargantuan. We can hardly fail to see that.”"

"And in the manner of this ideal we strive, though even that not too onerously. For piety itself may be used to make a chain about the soul."

"Ebriel regarded his adversary. His eyes grew peculiarly lambent, as though he had come to love her. Of course, they were sworn foes; perhaps he had."

"Fashions change. Even in mythology."

"“I rule none of it,” called Atmeh to heaven. “Listen to me, you peerless soulless gods, I rule nothing and no one, and soon, soon I will outshine you, for I will be a mortal. And one day, as you never can, I and mine shall inherit the earth.”"

"“Now, when the man struck you, if you had only said to him, ‘strike me again for good measure, I have no quarrel with you,’ perhaps he would have struck you, or perhaps not, but the affair would have been finished with, and you at liberty to go on as you wished.” “Master, I see it is a parable, but nevertheless, some men, being allowed to strike another unchecked, will make a habit of striking there. Is that not also an interruption?” “Life is a series of blows,” said the priest, “birth and death being the greatest of these, but between them, many of lesser sort. And is it possible to return or mend every smack of fate and life? Sit down beneath a storm, for if you shout at it, it will not hear you.”"