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“‘And the only impossible thing is that I would leave you.’”
“Her blade shall bring justice at long last to the Scim.”
Peasant King
Scars help us remember.
Why don’t the Elenil have any scars?
It’s because there’s something they’re trying to forget.”
He looked like the place where rainbows go to die.
In Jason’s experience, the guy with the goofiest outfit might just be in charge.
To change the world, change first a heart.”
can honesty fill a rumbling stomach?”
“The Crescent Stone. Also called the Heart of the Scim,”
The Heart of the Elenil is with them, the Heart of the Scim with us.
my throne was a bale of hay, my crown a twist of holly. They called me the Peasant King. In mockery at first and later with respect. More titles came, in time, but the Peasant King is one I have cherished.”
There are a great many people who want you to be a great many things to them. A savior or messiah or agent of world change.”
the myth of redemptive violence is just that, a myth. Violence solves a problem in the way gasoline solves a fire. There are other paths. They are, almost always, more difficult. Seek them
out.”
“I’m beginning to wonder,” she said, “if the Elenil are the bad guys here.
like some sort of fourth wheel. Wait. Third wheel? But there were four of them. Four wheels were good. Whatever. He was following behind them like the fourth, less happy, wheel.
Better a failure than a coward.”
“Go with God,” Fernanda replied.
“Wu Song. Truly, you are a thorn of great length and sharpness inserted deeply into my side.”
“But you are the one who benefited,” Break Bones said. “You did not kill him, but you inherited his life.”
“What you’ve seen,” Darius said, “is their war skin. Before going to battle they transform themselves to intimidate, to cause fear, to make it clear they shouldn’t be messed with. You’ve never seen a Scim before, not really. You’ve seen a people at war, not the people themselves.”
“It is foolish to be upset about what is. Let us instead attempt to shape what will be.”
During the storm, hope. After the storm, peace. A KAKRI PROVERB
There’s a story about the Peasant King, about how when he built the Sunlit Lands, he went to the wealthy and the powerful people in the world and offered to let them come in. He told them it was paradise, and that meant everyone would be equal. They would leave their power and their wealth at the door, and in the Sunlit Lands all their needs would be provided for—they would never be hungry or sick. They would be happy. But they didn’t want to leave their wealth and their power. The Peasant King got angry, and he said those people could never come in, ever. He cast a spell so only
the outcasts, the losers, the broken, the homeless, and the wounded could enter. He made the doors hard to find and in the worst places in the world.”
You don’t fight for a higher position in the Sunlit Lands. It’s the beggars who are kings, right? The wealthy and powerful, they’re the fools.
There’s a certain point when you realize that hope isn’t what you need anymore. You can’t hope forever. Sometimes people die. Terrible things happen. Evil wins, and farmers end up in jail while the wealthy get richer. Injustice rules the world. Your lungs get more and more scarred and there’s nothing to be done.”
“No, Jason, listen to me. Sometimes hope isn’t what you need. This disease is going to kill me. I’m going to take it back, and I will die. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But I will. Sometimes you don’t need hope anymore.” Tears streaked Jason’s face. He rubbed at them with the back of his hand. “If we don’t need hope, Mads, what do we need?” “Courage,” she said. “I don’t need hope anymore, Jason. I know what’s coming. I need courage to face it.” He took her hand. “We’ll face it together.”
To change the world, change first a heart. THE GARDEN LADY
She was forcing everyone else to change when she hadn’t changed herself. It was her heart that needed to change, her heart that could change the world.
“There are more choices than those,” Madeline said.
the story of the girl who had destroyed the magic that kept her alive.
“You are a man who shares his stories generously. You are honest and kind. Such men are always threatened with death.”
To see another is the birth of Compassion. FROM “RENALDO THE WISE,” A SCIM LEGEND
She was looking for those places where she could breathe only because others were holding their breath. And she planned to take a sword to each and every place she discovered.
The Peasant King said, “The glory of a king comes from neither wealth nor finery but from the well-being of his people.
“A true king must not pretend to be a servant, but rather become one.”
Humans! Ye shall live upon another earth, a people of science and dust. Bereft of magic, short lived and passionate, there shall still be beauty and wonder among you. In great need may ye return to the Sunlit Lands,
for ye are our cousins and neighbors.
“To see another is the birth of Compassion. Compassion is a seed of Love. Love comes hand in hand with Joy. So, little children, love one another, that your joy may be complete.”
“Our great Enemy will give me a sword, and I shall give him my heart for a sheath.”
“They have deserted me, but I have not deserted them.”
JR. Forasteros
