"The Sin Washer had died centuries ago, and His legacy seemed often to be in the accumulation of connections and power more than the distribution of emotional or spiritual ease. She kept that thought to herself. Wisdom came in many forms, and silence was often the most useful."

“Talent alone is not enough. In the end, Guardian, it is desire that creates a master vintner, makes him into a Vineart. A passion, not for power, or strength, but for the grapes themselves. Anything else leads to ruin.”

“That is the danger of an idea, Jerzy. Once planted, you cannot control where the roots may go.”

“He is not bound so tightly by tradition that he will refuse a good idea simply for it being new, and not so wild that he would take a bad idea simply because it is new.”

“Power calls to those who are hungry for power, and there are hungry idiots everywhere.”

“And still, the more he learned, the more he became aware that he did not know.”

“Any change in routine was terrifying, even if it involved less violence rather than more.”