With a Tangled Skein (Incarnations of Immortality, #3)

by Piers Anthony

Only in mortality can the true guts of existence be experienced.

Mortals tend to blame Fate for their failings and fail to credit Fate for their successes, which is annoying, but actually my options are limited.

Animated free will—otherwise known as life.

a man could not be judged by his private entertainments; it was his performance in office that counted.

the human condition: each person blundering along in his own course, trying to relate to others, and succeeding only fractionally. Because each person, mortal and immortal, was traveling along his own unique timeline, unable to tie in with others perfectly, however much they all tried.

“How can you be so brave?” the girl asked, awed. “I'm a mother. It comes with the office.”

“When you have something you would die to protect, it ceases to be a matter of courage,” Niobe explained. “You just know what you have to do and you can't afford fear.”

“The reason women suppose that men want only one thing,” Mars continued blithely, “is that that is all women are capable of perceiving in men. Women do not properly comprehend matters like, for example, honor.”

Her dress was a drab gray, and not well-fitted. That last wasn't really carelessness; if the dress fitted better, it would show up the inadequacies of her present figure all too clearly.

There is too much insensitivity and isolation in this world; there should be no shame in caring, even if only for constructs of the imagination.