True peace required the presence of justice, not just the absence of conflict.

The priest’s lesson: beware the Nightlord, for his pleasure is a mortal’s doom. My grandmother’s lesson: beware love, especially with the wrong man.

Suffering is part of life,’ she said. ‘All the parts of life are jumbled up together; you can’t separate out just the one thing.’ She parred his hand again, kindly. ‘I could let you kill...

You’re very lucky… Friends are precious, powerful things – hard to earn, harder still to keep. You should thank this one for taking a chance on you.

Determination could easily become obsession.

In the future, as in the present, as in the past, black people will build many new worlds.This is true. I will make it so. And you will help me.

Inevitable is not the same as immediate, Sieh–and love does not mandate forgiveness.

Only learning oneself better, and understanding one’s place in the world, made the touch of another mundane.

So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and...

This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is...

Caucasian”, most of them little realizing that the term and its history are as constructed as anything sold in the fantasy section of a bookstore.These are proven strategies, but I have no interest in them....

And once upon a time I wondered: Is writing epic fantasy not somehow a betrayal? Did I not somehow do a disservice to my own reality by paying so much attention to the power fantasies...

But love like that doesn’t just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath.Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?

Once upon a time there was aOnce upon a time there was aOnce upon a time there was aStop this. It’s undignified.

It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all – but we...

Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and...

…and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.

So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things. But love like that...

We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.

I remembered Nahadoth’s lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn’t something I had considered, but it did not surprise...

But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn’t always guard the gates.

Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?

Myths tell us what those like us have done, can do, should do. Without myths to lead the way, we hesitate to leap forward. Listen to the wrong myths, and we might even go back...

It was said that the gods favored fools because they were entertaining to watch.

We can never be gods, after all–but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.

If the gods do decide to wipe us out, is it such a bad thing? Maybe we’ve earned a little annihilation.

He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he’d been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist...

They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value.

It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defence, their physical strength bent towards the single and most important task of protecting our...

You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.

In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power...