Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it.

Rachel Hartman

Categorized in : Book Age Dragons

My own survival required me to counterbalance interesting with invisible.

Rachel Hartman

invisible survival interesting

Haven't you always been more than yourself? Haven't we all? We are none of us just one thing.

Rachel Hartman

just-one one-thing havens

It is permissible to be the god of your own metaphors.

Rachel Hartman

metaphor

The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone.

Rachel Hartman

hinges simple world

Was it probably true that reasoning beings were equal? It seemed more like a belief than a fact, even if I agreed with it. If you followed logic all the way back to its origin, did you inevitably end up at point of illogic, an article of faith?

Rachel Hartman

belief facts way

However strenuously the world pulls us apart, however long the absence, we are not changed for being dashed upon the rocks. I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home.

Rachel Hartman

rocks home long

Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.

Rachel Hartman

awkward metaphor emotion

And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.

Rachel Hartman

treasure ignorance needs

Claude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable.

Rachel Hartman

wrinkles men believe

I had felt the shot coming; I hadn't realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition?

Rachel Hartman

bows shots study

Did I become court composer through masterful procrastination? Hardly!

Rachel Hartman

composer court procrastination

If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars.

Rachel Hartman

single-mom stars air

Heaven has fashioned a knife of irony to stab me with.

Rachel Hartman

irony knives heaven

I cannot perch among those who think that I am broken.

Rachel Hartman

broken thinking

The world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and gods.

Rachel Hartman

galaxy planes world

Your lies didn't stop me loving you; your truth hasn't stopped me either.

Rachel Hartman

loving-you lying

That’s the secret to performance: conviction. The right note played tentatively still misses its mark, but play boldly and no one will question you. If one believes there is truth in art – and I do – then it’s troubling how similar the skill of performing is to lying. Maybe lying is itself a kind of art. I think about that more than I should.

Rachel Hartman

believe lying art

I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who’d rather avoid them.

Rachel Hartman

cat people way

We were all monsters and bastards, and we were all beautiful.

Rachel Hartman

monsters beautiful

I barely noticed loneliness anymore; it was my normal condition, by necessity if not by nature.

Rachel Hartman

conditions normal loneliness