“It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”

“Sometimes translation stops you understanding.”

“We speak now or I do, and others do. You've never spoken before. You will. You'll be able to say how the city is a pit and a hill and a standard and an animal that hunts and a vessel on the sea and...”

“I needed to be alone for whatever would happen. I knew that something would as certainly as if this were a last chapter.”

“I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice...”

“If I program ware with an Anglo-Ubiq word and play it, you understand it, Scile said. If I do the same with a word in Language, and play it to an Ariekes, I understand it, but to them it means noth...”

“A promise fulfilled may be a classic moment, but prophecies mean anticlimax. How much more awesome was an unexpected salvation?”

“Tell them I came, and no one answered,That I kept my word," he said.Never the least stir made the listeners,Though every word he spakeFell echoing through the shadowiness of the still houseFrom the...”

“Some people think they can just decree that everything will be fine. The world doesnt work like that. Im not sure the world gives a crap about anyones promises, well-meaning or otherwise. Sometimes...”

“In a world where vows are worthless.Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power.”