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Why are we wondering why the world wishes itself dead when we are doing nothing to heal it?

There is a kind of animal frenzy can be whipped up sometimes among fools and children, often using religion as an excuse for it. When it happens, it is wise to be elsewhere.

I’ll tell you, nothing is so dangerous as ambition in a man who cares not who stands in his way.

“And now you must decide which pain you will bear. That of being as you were. Or that of being as you are.”

I brought myself up to my knees. That was as far as I could get. The hand that had held the tea cup appeared again, a full cup in it, the steam rising into my nose. I gulped it, interrupting the gulps with sobs. “Pain of being as I am? I don’t understand.”

“But of course you do. The pain of curiosity unsatisfied, of ambition unfulfilled. The pain of love unreturned, of devotion undeserved. The pain of friendship rejected, of leadership ridiculed. The pain of loneliness and labor. Silly child. Did you think living was easy?”

“How is that possible?”

“To a Wizard, anything is possible,” the Dervish said with more than a hint of scorn. “Or so they lead themselves to believe.”

His understanding is not great, but his sense of power and treachery is unfailing.

Mendost is not long on thinking, but he has a clear picture of himself as he believes he is.

I have discovered something else, Throsset of Dowes. And that is that men give women jewels when they have absolutely no idea what might please them and are not willing to take time to think about it.

“Oh, but I am soiled beyond all cleansing.…”

“Nonsense,” said Mavin impatiently. “You are silly beyond all belief, but that is your sole sin I am aware of, young man.”

You have not reared him to care what others do, or think, or say. How then should he care for education, for is that not the study of what others care about?

“Every promise is like that,” she whispered to herself as she stopped counting strides for a moment. “Every promise has arms and legs and tentacles reaching off into other things and other places, strange bumps and protrusions you don’t see when you make the promise. Then you find you’ve take up some great, lumpy thing you never knew existed until you see it for the first time in the light of morning.”

“He is a Seer,” Mavin said sullenly, aware of her lack of logic.

“Poof. Seers. Sometimes they know everything about something no one cares about. Often they know nothing about something important.”