Karen Lord

"That was the nature of chaos; its effects spanned time in ways that were not always immediately discernible, not even by beings outside of time."

"Getting information out of them was like extracting gold from ore—a lot of labour and time, and why bother to do it when you know there’s a store just around the corner?"

"Paama sat up slowly, moving as cautiously as if facing a lion who had just declared his intention not to pounce, but to have a friendly chat instead."

"Ansige’s outer appearance could be deceptive, but, given enough time, he let everyone know who and what he was."

"Let me tell you, I have seen men who are trying to find themselves, and I have seen men who are trying to lose themselves, but rare indeed is the man who knows exactly who he is and where he is at."

"Besides, for poets it wasn’t lying, it was art."

"Chaos was a far subtler force than most people realised. It would be so easy to sense if it threw off thunderbolts or sent barely sensed thrummings through the fabric of reality, but it was nothing mo…"

"Ansige unreeled the tale of his tribulations, thoroughly ransacking the truth and then dipping into the bag of embellishment and sprinkling with a free hand."