Home > Work > Shadow Scale (Seraphina, #2)
1 " How did you merit so much devotion so quickly?' I asked, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm from my voice.'I show them Heaven', said she, without a trace of irony. 'People are so desperate for light'. "
― Rachel Hartman , Shadow Scale (Seraphina, #2)
2 " The beauty of the place moved me; I loved how the clean air felt in my lungs, how far I was from everything I had ever known. People I'd hurt, people I'd failed, people who thought me a monster. Here there was no monster greater than the ragged mountains. "
3 " I took a break, stretched, tried again, failed, kicked over the music stand (I am not proud of that), and wonder whether I had reached the limits of my musical ability. Maybe I'd never had any. Surely someone with a modicum of talent wouldn't have to work this hard. "
4 " I understood something about myself as well, even if I didn't have the will to examine it just then. "
5 " My companions ate the bear. I found I had no appetite. "
6 " Here there was no monster greater than the ragged mountains. "
7 " Oh, you humans may prefer empathy and mercy, but that's like intuiting the answer to an equation: you still have to go back and work the problem to be certain you were right. We can come to genuinely moral conclusions by our own paths. "
8 " Was it probably true that reasoning beings were equal? It seemed more like a belief than a fact, even if I agreed with it. If you followed logic all the way back to its origin, did you inevitably end up at point of illogic, an article of faith? "
9 " More insomniacs!' cried the doctor. 'Come in, come in". "
10 " But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?""I'm not human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my default condition." I couldn't help it; I laughed, and teas weleld in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma, distilled to his elemental Orma-ness. "
11 " However strenuously the world pulls us apart, however long the absence, we are not changed for being dashed upon the rocks. I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home. "
12 " The twin gods, Necessity and Chance, walked among the stars. What needed to be, was; what might be, sometimes was. "
13 " The thing about reason is that there's a geometry to it. It travels in a straight line, so that slightly different beginnings can lead you to wildly divergent endpoints. "
14 " How did you stand lying about yourself for years? You must have felt cut off from the whole world."I fought down the lump in my throat. "I did indeed. And then I met this prince who seemed able to see through me, to the truth behind the lies. He was terrifying and fascinating, but to my amazement, it was an immeasurable relief to be seen. "
15 " Sometimes everyone does their best and things still go wrong. "
16 " These human eyes seemed weak to me at first," said Eskar, still staring away from me, scratching her short black hair. "They detect fewer colors and have terrible resolution, but they see things dragon eyes cannot. They can see beyond surfaces. I don't understand how that's possible, but it happened incrementally as I traveled with Orma: I began to see the inside of him. His questioning and gentle nature. His conviction. I'd glimpse it in something as incongruous as his hand holding a teacup, or his eyes when he spoke of you. "
17 " Camba had bent her long neck down to Ingar's level and was muttering in his ear. "Do you feel the breeze on your face?" I heard her say. "That's yours, and worth feeling. Look at those orange clouds. All the trials of a day may be endured if you know there's such a sky at the end of it. Some days I told my heart to wait, just wait, because the sunset would teach me again that my pain was nothing compared with the eternal, circling sky. "
18 " Haven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing. "
19 " I will see you both in Goredd, then, when I clasp your hands across the smoking ashes of my enemies.""Isn't that what you were trying to avoid by sneaking up the Omiga?" Kiggs said.The Comonot considered. "Yes, but I like the sound of those words. Interesting. "
20 " Nothing was just one thing; there were worlds within worlds. Those of us who trod the line between were blessed and burdened with both. "
