“Its against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do.”

“Sir Topher finally looked up. Because any hope beyond that, my boy, would be too much. I feared we would drown in it."Then I choose to drown, Finnikin said. In hope. Rather than float into nothing.”

“Then I choose to drown. In hope. Rather than float into nothing.”

“He hesitated, remembering something Finnikin had said to him on their journey. That somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held tho...”

“How unladylike of you to mention such a thing.”

“Today this courtyard was filled with great warriors. What is more? But it was not filled with great men who have the heart to rule a kingdom. Any man can kill, Finnikin. It is a stroke, an action w...”

“We are looking for a tongue that speaks with reverence for life, searching for an ecology of mind. Without it, we have no home, no place of our own within the creation. It is not only the vocabular...”

“But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them.”

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder goe wh...”