“Bravery is not the absence of fear but the forging ahead despite being afraid”

“Knowledge was like candy: you never turned it down, especially if you didn't have to work too hard to get it.”

“Nothing but trees.”

“If I guess your secret, will you tell me if I'm right?" His father laughed but didn't answer.”

“Live to fight another day was an expression that did not take nto account the loved one who would die because you didn't continue fighting today.”

“Xander could sense more than David's smile. He wished he could be more like that, easygoing. But then, David hadn't seen what Xander had seen.”

“Live your life. Be happy as you can be, let go of the things that don't matter, and fight.”

“Mum is a perfectionist and Dad is a pedant and that was partly why their marriage didn't work so well, Elsa figures. Because a perfectionist and a pedant are two very different things.”

“I've survived revolution, war, and over a decade on this continent," the Burgrave reflected. "But by all the ghosts of the hundred emperors, I think fatherhood will finally do me in.”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”