Kate Elliott (another acknowledgment, for being a perpetual mentor and friend) calls moments like this the “Chasm of Doubt” that every writer hits at some point during a major project. — 379: 5521-5522
things contain. Richness. Strangeness. Darker colors — : 401-401
And it is only sensible that you would put those people to work, too. Guarding your walls. Tending — : 3132-3132
“This is the task of the Guardians, little one. We prevent orogeny from disappearing—because in truth, the people of the world would not survive without it. Orogenes are essential. And yet because you are essential, you cannot be permitted to have a choice in the matter. You must be tools—and tools cannot be people. Guardians keep the tool … and to the degree possible, while still retaining the tool’s usefulness, kill the person.” — : 2239-2242
None of them are angry at Gallat for being too dangerous to have a simple conversation with, though. There’s something very wrong with that. — : 3211-3212
What would I want, if I could be free? Safety for Darr. My mother’s death given meaning. Change, for the world. And for myself… I understand now. I have chosen who will shape me. — 292: 3507-3509
A man so neglectful of his livelihood was unlikely to be particularly careful of his heirs. — 276: 4106-4107
But then a sharp squeal penetrated the hate, and Tookie looked up. The monster had paid him no heed despite his shout, preoccupied as it was with the enemy before it: a sextet of tiny creatures that dipped and wheeled in aerobatic circles around its misshapen head as it turned to follow them. In profile it was even uglier, lumpen and raw, its lower jaw trailing spittle as it worked around a mouthful of something that wriggled and shrieked and beat at it with wings like rusted, ocher clouds—“No, goddamn it!” Tookie shouted. Suddenly his head was clear, the hate shattered by horror. He raised the gun, and something else rose in him: a great, huge feeling, as big as the monster and just as overwhelming, but cleaner. Familiar. It was the city beneath his feet, below the water, still patiently holding its breath. He felt the tension in his own lungs. He had played no music, faked no voodoo, paid no taxes and no court to the chattering throngs who came and spent themselves and left the city bruised and weary in their wake. But the city was his, low creature that he was, and it was his duty to defend it. It had spent years training him, honing him, making him ready to serve for its hour of need. He was a foot soldier, too, and in that breath of forever he heard the battle call of his home. So Tookie planted his feet on the rotting wood, and aimed for one bulbous eye with his dirty gun, and screamed with the pent breath of ten thousand waterlogged streets as he blew it away. — 350: 5221-5232
“That is pie in a sky,” the woman says. Bronca frowns a little at the odd phrasing. “Cruelty is human nature.” Bronca restrains the urge to laugh. She’s never liked that little bit of bullshit “wisdom.” “Nah. Nothing human beings do is set in stone—and even stone changes, anyway. We can change, too, anything about ourselves that we want to. We just have to want to.” She shrugs. “People who say change is impossible are usually pretty happy with things just as they are.” — 209: 3204-3208
out a sigh of relief. “We can go and find him, finally.” — 295: 4516-4517