“Do you see how much power you have when you act without fear?”

“Taking away men's weapons will be not bring peace. They'll fight with sticks and stones, and tooth and nail. Mapidr's is a peace supported only by fear, as secure as a nest built on a rotten branch.”

“There is far more happiness in a life that is your own than a life in which you are handed the lines to say and shown the gestures to make. Do not ever be ambitious.”

“I thought my duty was to restore Haan, but Haan is not King Cosugi or the burned-down palace or the ruins of the great estates or the dead nobles and their descendants pining for glory-these are bu...”

“I have seen the poor suffer when nobles seek the purity of ideals. I have seen the powerless die when princes believe in the nostalgia of their dreams. I have seen the common people torn from peace...”

“He intrigued her. Powerful men, in her experience, were usually not so full of doubt. Kuni was consumed by the desire to do good for others, but uncertain what "good" might be and whether he was th...”

“He was, however, unable to give much prolonged or continuous thought to anything that evening , or to concentrate on any one idea; and anyway, even if he had been able to, he would not have found h...”

“Nature can counsel nothing but crime.”

“A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.”

“Nature seems to welcome defiance of conventions, and to say, with a smile, 'So, the truant has come back again!' ("Absolute Evil")”

“Its probably my job to tell you life isnt fair, but I figure you already know that. So instead, Ill tell you that hope is precious, and youre right not to give up.”

“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

“they were forbidden words, laced with the fear of transgression and sin.”

“Im not a rebel. I was sent here to protect, not to harm.”

“Human security depends on a system where each rational individual calculates that it is more profitable not to rebel.”