"What did you do with your life, Master Bran?" she demanded accusingly. "More to the point, what will you do with your life now that you have it back… - Stephen R. Lawhead

It is a great thing to be a king, Hawk. A very great thing, indeed. But there is authority of a kind even kings must bend to. Discover this and whether you wear a torc of gold or beggar’s rags, your name will burn forever in men’s minds.

A favourite saying in China—which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother—was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle.

J. R. R. Tolkien, undisputedly a most fluent speaker of this language, was criticized in his day for indulging his juvenile whim of writing fantasy, which was then considered — as it still is in many quarters — an inferior form of literature and disdained as mere “escapism.” “Of course it is escapist,” he cried. “That is its glory! When a soldier is a prisoner of war it is his duty to escape — and take as many with him as he can.” He went on to explain, “The moneylenders, the knownothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as possible.