She had grown through loss and confusion into a girl who lived almost entirely inside her head, taking refuge in the places she created there, not so… - Sheri S. Tepper

"We have simply been too fearful to go into that place."
"You? Fearful?" I doubted this.
"Do not mistake my arrogance for courage, my son. It is true that I am renowned for what I can do. But I am afraid of the unknown, as are most men, Gamesmen or pawns alike."

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."

Time went by, swift but interminable. Time past was nothing, no matter how long. Time ahead was everything, no matter how brief.