Michael J. Sullivan

“Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the w”

“Sometimes the price of dreams is achieving them.”

“I just never noticed how little of me existed before. I was a shadow without a person.”

“And you? Did you find the doorknob?”Hadrian picked up a jug and downed several swallows, drinking so quickly some of the water dripped down his chin. He poured some in his palm and rinsed his face, running his fingers through his hair.“I didn’t even get close enough to see a door.”“Well, look on the bright side”—Hadrian smiled—“at least you weren’t captured and condemned to death this time.”“That’s the bright side?”“What can I say? I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy.”

“Royce looked back down at the stream below. "She doesn't even know me. What if she doesn't like me? Few people do.""She might not at first. Maribor knows I didn't. But you have a way of growing on a person." He smiled. "You know, like lichen or mold.”

“Take my advice: live your life to the fullest. Breathe the air, taste the wine, kiss the girls, and always remember that the tales of another are never as wondrous as your own.”

“There always seemed to be a better way, except when it came to people. Once broken, people couldn't be repaired.”

“It was a trap after all,” Alric said. He turned to Royce. “My apologies for doubting your sound paranoia.”

“One truth doesn't refute another. Truth doesn't lie in the object, but in how we see it.”

“Fulfillment comes from striving to succeed, to survive by your own wits and strength. Such things make each of us who we are. You lose that in captivity, lose yourself, and that loss saps your capacity for joy.”

“You can go back to blacksmithing in Hintindar and live a quiet happy life. Do me a favor and marry some pretty farm girl and train your son to beat the crap out of imperial knights.""Sure," Hadrian told him. "And with any luck he'll make friends with a cynical burglar who'll do nothing but torment him.”

“Arista," the wizard said, "sharks don't eat seafood because they like it, but because chickens don't swim. We all do the best we can with the tools we have, but at some point you have to ask yourself where the tools came from.”

“Bah!” Magnus scoffed. “Humans always blame dwarves. A baby goes missing and it was a dwarf that stole it. A princess runs off with a second son of a king and it was a dwarf who lured her to a deep prison. And when they find her with the prince—lo, she was rescued!“A king is stabbed in the back in his own chapel, and a princess’s toweris turned into a death trap,” Royce called back to them. “Friends arebetrayed and trapped in a prison—yes, I can see your surprise. Where do they get such ideas?”“Damn his elven ears,” Magnus said.”

“I tried to find a way to go on. I could see familiar traces of the path that was my life, but there was always the wall behind me. Do you know what I mean? First you try and climb, pretending it never happened, but it's too tall. Then you try to go around, thinking you can fix it, but it is too far. Then, in frustration, you beat on it with your hands, but it does nothing, so you tire and sit down and just stare at it. You stare because you can't bring yourself to walk away. Walking away means that you're giving up, abandoning them. "There is no way back. There is only forward. It's impossible to imagine there's any reason to move ahead, but that isn't the real reason you give up. The real fear--the terror that keeps you rooted--is that you might be wrong." --Myron, Monk of Maribor”

“If given a choice between a potentially great hardship and doing nothing, people gravitate toward what was most familiar and comfortable. That was why leadership was needed. To do what was necessary rather than what was easy.”

“When you expect nothing from the world - not the light of the sun, the wet of water, nor the air to breathe - everything is a wonder and every moment a gift.”

“Power doesn't equal worth. Wisdom is a far greater virtue.”

“If this hast been done to language, I fear to know the fate of all else.”

“Don't worry, my son, if you don't believe in Maribor and the blessings He provides. Belief in Him isn't a requirement. It doesn't stop Him from believing in you. (capital H's added for reverence)”

“The thing about the old is that we never change so much as the young. We slip in degrees, adding rings like trees--a new wrinkle here, a shade less color there, but the young transform like caterpillars into butterflies. They become whole new people as if overnight.”