“Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people.”
“Yes Headwoman Azaze. But I never lie to Rosethorn. She, um, discourages it."
"Evvy and I have an understanding." She grabbed the teakettle and poured hot water into the mug. "She tells me the truth, and I don't hang her in the first well we come to. It's a solution that works tolerably well for both of us.”
“I'm not so fond of people myself, Evvy, but I took my vows for a reason. There are two classes of people in the world, the destroyers and the builders. I want to build, not destroy. You need to ask yourself who you're going to be.”
“The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.”
“When I told you don’t touch me to wake me, ever, because I’ve been in a war and I react violently, you respected me.” For a plant person, Rosethorn could sound like iron when she made a point with someone stupid. “Evvy was in that same war. She fought as hard as any adult—harder, sometimes. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that she may suffer the same effects.”
“But I’ve only been at this mage business four years. I have some catching up to do—”
“I have been reminded that back in the day, eating was to provide fuel for work, a necessity of life as mundane as bathing or sleeping. Pleasurable, sure, but when did it become such an obsession? We are bombarded daily with adverts, images, ideas and offers, all urging us to eat more, eat better, eat different, eat cheaply, and then ironically the list of diets available to us to help balance the overconsumption are so varied and many that they are too numerous to list. Here’s an exercise: try to name six members of the current cabinet. Most people struggle after three. Now try naming me six diets. Easy, huh? As a food lover and writer, I can say that the eating, preparation and sourcing of food has been a lifelong pleasure. I believe that one of the greatest expressions of love is to cook for someone. For”
“Saunders writes like something of a saint. He seems in touch with some better being. He teaches us not only how to write but how to live. He sets the bar and also the example. He hopes we might see the possibility of our better selves and act on it. He seems sent—what other way to put it?—to teach us mercy and grace.”
“I can't change it now, and besides, I like who those years made me into,”
“He'll never be frightened. He knows too damn much.”
“By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent.”
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