The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.

“I'm tired of being what everyone else has made me,” I said. “I want to be myself.”

“Don’t be a child.”

I looked up, startled and angry, though of course there was nothing to see. “What?”

“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I’m tired of your whining.”

There is no logic to grief.

It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy, it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all—but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.

But love like that doesn’t just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there’s always a little love left, underneath.

Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?

But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much.

There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.

Immortality gets very, very boring. You'd be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia.