I felt a terrible sadness open inside me, a void through which the winds from the end of the universe were blowing. - Alastair Reynolds

The old murals came from the heart," Zima said. "I painted on a huge scale because that was what the subject matter seemed to demand." "It was good work," I said. "It was hack work. Huge, loud, demanding, popular, but ultimately soulless. Just because it came from the heart didn't make it good.

Rashmika could tell when anyone around her was lying. But seeing through her own deceptions was another matter entirely.

It was a numbers game, not a guaranteed method of avoiding being killed, but Clavain had been a soldier long enough to know that this was, ultimately, what most combat situations boiled down to.