Deathseed Quotes

“She'd realized that it would take years of work to even dream of challenging any of the injustices she saw. And so she'd made compromises, wandered through many other worlds, took small jobs and continued to live her life. Sometimes she went a day without thinking about Nlukoko or Erusha and she felt guilty for it. Every step along the way, she told herself that it was necessary. That it was acceptable to live for a little while and enjoy life with her friends, because it all took her close to the time when she could make a difference.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“My problem is much worse than yours: assuming I can completely analyze the situation. Maybe I was right this time, but when I'm wrong, I run head first into walls. Yes, sometimes people don't say exactly what they mean. But if you start assuming they don't mean what they say, or that their words aren't a good picture of what they really think, that leads you down a dark path.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Maybe it was the atmosphere or maybe old patterns were just reasserting themselves. Everyone liked to pretend that life was a smooth path upward, with lessons and improvements, but in her experience there was plenty of backsliding and forgetting as well. Too much.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Sometimes it felt like their relationship had regressed after they'd begun courting.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Just talk to each other!" He thrust a finger in her direction. "Nauda, she's not rejecting you, she wanted you to confirm that you wanted her along. Fiyu, she's afraid she's imposing on your progress and so she's looking for an excuse to back off. Both of you obviously want to spend more time together and you keep undermining yourselves. Don't assume things, just talk!”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Maybe watching someone win every single time was fun for an observer, but it was boring to live through.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“If a Dominion decided they didn't like a mountain, they could throw out some cantae and there wouldn't be a mountain anymore. Not effortlessly, more like an inconvenience. Most Strongholds could deploy their most powerful techniques and destroy the offending mountain. Authorities? They could do the job eventually, but they'd have to be smart about it.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“The second sphere of his soulhome would represent him. Not his ordinary physical body, with chambers for each organ, but the abstract concept of himself. If he did everything right, his Corporeal Monument wouldn't make his soulhome more physical, it would make him more abstract by fusing his flesh into all the gravity he'd been soulcrafting.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Why did the scowling misanthrope always attract the hangers-on?”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“There had always been a conflict between his physical body and the gravity of his soulhome. It just wasn't contained within his soulhome, so he hadn't been thinking about it. The truth was that he was still a physical body, reaching into his soulhome and then "casting" gravity as a force separate from himself. Merging the two concepts had never been the right idea: what he needed was to convert one to the other. Not fusing gravitational cantae into his body, but linking his body to his own singularity and thus doing the opposite. All these materials, and whatever form of Corporeal Monument he eventually formed, needed to be subservient to his gravitational theme. How exactly he was going to do that, Theo had no idea. But unlike all the other brilliant ideas he'd invented and then thrown aside over the past months, he thought this one could work. It was like a perverse fusion of everything he'd discussed with Senka. Instead of alternating doorframes to combine two different concepts, he needed a more elegant design. Yes... his second singularity could still be in the central column, it just needed modulation. He could build doors around the center instead of around the edges: strengthen the gravitational cantae as it emerged, fuse it with the physical sublime materials, then use their strength solely to enhance the gravity. The second sphere of his soulhome would represent him. Not his ordinary physical body, with chambers for each organ, but the abstract concept of himself. If he did everything right, his Corporeal Monument wouldn't make his soulhome more physical, it would make him more abstract by fusing his flesh into all the gravity he'd been soulcrafting.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed

“Back then he had been obsessed with his own power, and if he was honest with himself, in some ways that hadn't changed. It was so easy to come up with illusory "lessons" and believe that he'd changed when in fact he was still a chaotic mix of different goals. Too many people he had been, too many he might be in the future. At least he could remember that the world didn't revolve around him, and hopefully this lesson wouldn't slip away from him.”
― Sarah Lin, Deathseed