“Arin, are you all right?""How?" He managed. "How did her arm break?""She fell of a ladder."He must have visibly relaxed, because his cousin raised her brows and looked ready to scold. "I imagined s...”

“I want to know everything about you." So he told her. The stars, too, seemed to listen.”

“Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the ke...”

“Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease.Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arins throat, just as it had when she had a...”

“You will be lonely, but you'll become strong.”

“People of the hundred," he said, using an ancient Herrani phrase Arin was surprised he knew, "who leads you?"So many cried Arin's name that it no longer sounded like his name.”

“She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. Im going to miss you when I wake up, she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too r...”

“Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the ke...”

“Someone was coming through the velvet.He was pulling it wide, he was stepping onto Kestrels balconyclose, closer still as she turned and the curtain swayed, then stopped. He pinned the velvet again...”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“He wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.”

“Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Sh...”

“Tell the story as if it were only of interest to the small circle of your characters, of which you may be one. There is no other way to put life into the story.”