I do not want to choose which one of you I must love or hate. Here, I am free to do neither. I want no part… — Patricia A. McKillip

He was silent a moment, struggling. He said finally, “But you had a right to be angry.”

“Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.”

“The Riddle Master himself lost the key to his own riddles one day,” he said in his deep, reed-pure voice, “and he found it again at the bottom of his heart.”

Wisdom never learned silence, and it is most annoying when least wanted.