Vonda N. McIntyre

"He moved inside the temple to perform his duties. They were few, and empty tradition. The god had departed, long before its last, ridiculed worshippers, as gods always do. The keeper knew that, and allowed himself no illusions about his status."

"You’d have everyone substitute your fantasies for their own."

"Jason was an optimist, and Kylis was experienced."

"She had learned to doubt, rather than simply to question."

"He must have been rebuffed and denigrated all his life, to be so afraid of touching another human being."

"She, too, felt the need for fresh air and rain and the ocean’s silent words."

"We spend most of our time carrying trivial cargoes for trivial reasons to trivial people."

"“It’s impossible to protect anyone completely without enslaving them. I think that’s something you’ve never understood because you’ve always demanded too much of yourself. You blame yourself for your sister’s death—” “I didn’t watch her carefully enough.” “What could you have done? Remember her life, not her death. She was brave and happy and arrogant, the way a child should be. You could only protect her more by chaining her to you with fear. She couldn’t live that way, not and remain the person you loved.”"

"He seemed to be so used to having his own way that he could not deal with bad fortune."

"If you want to. That’s the important thing. For you to do what you want to do. Not what you think anyone else wants or expects you to do."

"The intensity of Melissa’s loyalty troubled Snake. She had never known anyone who was so completely oblivious to self-interest. Perhaps Melissa could not yet think of herself as someone with a right to her own dreams; perhaps so many of her dreams had been taken from her that she no longer dared to have them."

"It was not fear that kept them from misusing what they had. It was self-respect."