“He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.”

“I am dying now, but I still have many things to say.”

“Song after Battle:As the young men went by I was looking for him. It surprises me anew That he has gone. It is something To which I cannot be reconciled.Owls hoot at me. Owls hoot at me. That is what I hear In my life. Wolves howl at me. Wolves howl at me. That is what I hear In my life. -American Indian Songs”

“If you don’t fear death, then let Kieran meet it.”

“Conner hadn’t liked leaving the gravesite with his father still not buried. But he’d learned from his grandmother’s funeral that you have to go. It’s expected. Nobody hangs around the cemetary. Grief—a little or a lot—is tucked into your pocket and carried away.”

“Watch birth and death:The lotus has alreadyOpened its flower.”

“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.”

“Mama said it’s probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don’t think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different before, I don’t remember.”

“La mayoría de la muerte de la gente es una farsa, no queda en ellos nada que pueda morir”

“It was the essence of life to disbelieve in death for one’s self, to act as if life would continue forever. And life had to act also as if little issues were big ones. To take a realistic attitude toward life and death meant that one lapsed into unreality. Into insanity. It was ironic that the only way to keep one’s sanity was to ignore that one was in an insane world or to act as if the world were sane.”

“His face set in grim determination, Richard slogged ahead, his fingers reaching up to touch the tooth under his shirt. Loneliness, deeper than he had never known, sagged his shoulders. All his friends were lost to him. He knew now that his life was not his own. It belonged to his duty, to his task. He was the Seeker. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not his own man, but a pawn to be used by others. A tool, same as his sword, to help others, that they might have the life he had only glimpsed for a twinkling.He was no different from the dark things in the boundary. A bringer of death.”

“a man was on his way to the gallows when he met another, who asked him: where are you going, my friend? and the condemned man replied: i’m not going anywhere. they’re taking me by force.”

“When I was a little girl,’ I said, sitting down, ‘the wallpaper in my room had pictures of Noah’s story.’ […]You know what’s weird though? It’s weird that the ark would be such a kids’ story, you know? I mean, it’s…really a story about death. Every person who isn’t in Noah’s family? They die. Every animal, apart from two of each on the boat? They die. They all die in the flood. Billions of creatures. It’s the worst tragedy ever,’ I finished, my voice tied off by a knot in my chest.[…] ‘What the hell,’I said, ‘pardon my language, was that doing on my wallpaper?”

“Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.”

“There is sorrow enough in the natural wayFrom men and woman to fill our day;But when we are certain of sorrow in store,Why do we always arrange for more?Brothers & Sisters, I bid you bewareOf giving your heart to a dog to tear.”