Book: Seeker

• "By now you should be convinced that our universe may have additional curled-up spatial dimensions; certainly, so long as they are small enough, nothing rules them out." - Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe [introduction]
• It would be nice to make it through alive. [Quin]
• Our purpose is worthy. I will not be afraid. [Quin]
• "Not fast enough, lass," he said. "You hesitate when you strike. Why? You'll have the most precious artifact in the history of mankind in your hands, won't you? You can't hesitate. And when you're There, when you step between, hesitation will be fatal." This was Alistair's mantra, which he'd been drumming into their heads for years. [Quin]
• Sometimes you could direct anger and fear into useful energy. But usually, emotion was a disadvantage. It scattered your mind, made you spend energy unwisely. [Quin]
• He hadn't been alone with her in days, and finding her seemed more important than anything else at this moment. [John]
• He'd failed at the moment when he'd most needed to succeed. [John]
• He forced the thought away. Life had been good here on the estate with Quin - as good as his life had ever been, much better than he'd dared to hope for - and he didn't want that to change. [John]
• When John's mother had been alive, she'd warned him to keep up his guard around everyone, and he did. But he liked to hear about Quin's family, about the lore of the estate. And Quin seemed to enjoy his company - not because he was wealthy or because his family was important but because she liked him. Just him. He never experienced that before. [John]
• And she began to get.. curves. He hadn't realized how distracting curves curves could be. He knew he was in trouble when he was fourteen, sitting in their language class, and he found himself examining the way Quin's slender waist twisted into her hips. They were being asked to read aloud in Dutch, but he was imagining his hand tracing the line of her body. [John]
• She struck him hard and he fell. Perhaps he'd let her hit him, because he didn't mind falling. [John]
• When you love, you open yourself to a dagger. When you love deeply, you have thrust the dagger into your own heart. [John]
• Love did not fit into any of his plans. But how could you plan for this? It wasn't just her beauty he wanted.It was all of her. [John]
• He'd meant to say something romantic and controlled, like "You're very beautiful", but instead the deeper truth came tumbling out of him. "I need you," he whispered to her. "I don't want to be alone.. I love you Quin..." [John]
• My mind is a muscle that's always slightly tensed. [John]
• John realized he was looking at her with pity. She was a girl with stars in her eyes, born in the wrong family, and the wrong century. [John]
• John's eyes were deep. That was how Quin had always thought of them. When he was with her, they would flash with humor and love, but at other times they were desolate and hungry, as though searching for something far away and out of reach. [Quin]
• John had seemed wary of their company at first, and his look warned them away. He'd spoken very little of anything personal, but eventually, Quin had decided the storms in his blue eyes were not anger or fear or betrayal, as she'd first thought, but simple loneliness. [Quin]
• She accepted his demeanor as a necessity of her training: he was preparing her for a life that would be harsh, but it was harsh in service of something good. [Quin]
• Once she had gone There, she might go anywhere. [Quin]
• "There is no 'must', John. There is only failure or success. You have failed." [John]
• There will be many things that try to pull you from the path. Hatred is one. [John]
• A vast ocean of hopelessness began to rise around John. He had to get out before he was engulfed. [John]
• And though she thought he was "beautiful" - her word; he'd heard her use it - his beauty to her was like the beauty in a painting, something you admire but do not want to touch. It was the worst kind of beauty, he thought. [Shinobu]
• "But know: if you choose to come back to the estate with me, life will be different. You might love a woman as I love your mother" - Shinobu noticed he used the present tense and wondered how drunk Alistair was - "but she will never know all of you." [Shinobu]
• AListair was right. The world was full of people, and maybe a lot of them were happy. Certainly a lot of them were girls, and if he wanted, it would be easy to find the funniest, the prettiest, the happiest, and convince her to fall in love with him. But where would that leave him? Empty, he thought. There was one girl, the he had grown up with. Perhaps she would never love him like that, but they already shared a life, and a purpose. They would be like the Seekers of old, their skills and their good works becoming the stuff of legends. Tyrants beware, as the ancient Seekers had said. Shinobu and Quin would protect good people from harm. He could never leave that behind. [Shinobu]
• "Do not think! Do not hesitate!" commanded Alistair. "Hesitation is the enemy of the Seeker!" [Quin]
• Had John lost her? This thought left him with an ache so intense that he'd driven his fist into the wall to make the feelings go away. [John]
• "All your life he's made you think one thing while preparing you for another," he told her softly. "Now you know." [John]
• "When someone you love is taken, you realize what's important," he whispered. "You don't want someone else deciding who lives and who dies. You'll never be safe." [John.]
• "Yes, yes, yes. I'm fighting. Fighting and fighting. But I'm afraid I may-finally-be-losing-John." [John]
• Life or death, sanity or insanity - he was holding these things in his hands. [John]
• There will be many things that try to pull you from the path. Hatred is one, love is another. [John]
• "Nothing was what we thought," he muttered to the small dummy as it lay on the floor. "I stayed only for you." [Shinobu]
• A few tears slid down her cheeks and landed on the floor of the stall. Roughly she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. This had happened a lot in the last month - nothing, and then suddenly tears. Another one rolled down her cheek, but she ignored it; she was tired of her own weakness. [Quin]
• She often imagined he was with her, his warm arms around her as she laid her head on his chest. When those daydreams ended, she would feel cold, and wonder if his eyes were lonely now, without her. [Quin]
• Quin realized some part of her had been waiting for him. But not like this. [Quin]
• It was not their duty to interfere. Yet they had interfered in the past. A thought came to the surface slowly: A woman with light brown hair, a boy hiding under the floor... They were not supposed to interfere, and yet they had. And look what happens. Out on the commons the young apprentice in the mask was yelling orders to the others. The boy becomes a man, and the man is angry... [Maud]
• It was easy to think you'd make the right choices when given power, but John didn't understand what it was to hold life and death in your hands and to decided which one you would deliver. [Quin]
• She sensed her body growing weak, but as her old master had taught her, weakness meant little. You kept going regardless. [Maud]
• Let the ocean take them and swallow the memory of those sparks. Let it swallow everything. [Shinobu]
• "You may forget if you wish ... all of it." [Shinobu]
• Forgetting is ... as simple as deciding, as gentle as sinking into a warm bed." [Shinobu]
• There was a tugging at the edges of her lips. It surprised her - her mouth had grown unused to smiling. [Quin]
• John's face held a mixture of hope and relief that was almost painful to see. [Shinobu]
• They both laughed. None of it mattered. Their work was over for the day, and the drug bars waited. [Shinobu]
• She did know him. She could imagine herself walking over and laying her head on his chest. But there was good reason her, mind told her, that she did not remember him. [Quin]
• He was getting closer. The way he moved ... She had seen him in a barn, in a field, far away from here. There was a river in the distance. These things were like marks left on an ink blotter after you've taken your paper away - she could feel them more than she could see them. [Quin]
• She could not remember, and yet not remembering was exhausting. [Quin]
• Instead of hitting the ground, she was lifted into John's strong arms. It felt so natural. Even though he was dangerous. He was dangerous, somehow. And so was she. Together they would be very dangerous. [Quin]
• "It's your past trying to overtake your present," Master Tan had explained patiently. You may leave it in the past, if you wish. You must simply wait for the moment to pass." [Quin]
• Why was it dangerous to be with him? It didn't make sense. She could sleep, because he was there to stand guard. Things were right again, because John was here. [Quin]
• He exhaled another cloud of smoke from the opium pipe cradled in his arm. It was his seventh pipe, and he was reaching that perfect state when he was balanced between his body and the sky: no worries, no trouble, no people. [Shinobu]
• As she ran with the boy in her arms, Quin knew she was dreaming. This was not real; this was not how it had happened. But for this one moment, she was making the right choice, the choice she should have made, and she was filled with happiness. [Quin]
• It was not the truth, but it felt good to be brave and noble, even in a dream. [Quin]
• "Is she dreaming of me," he wondered, "as I have dreamed of her?" [John]
• John could still feel her lips against his, but he hadn't been able to hold on to her. Again, he'd failed to convince her, and she was abandoning him. [John]
• Her eyes had closed, and she'd wondered what happened to someone like her when death came. Would it come upon her in a single, clear moment, or would it be as it was when you were stretched out, suspended in an endless moment that lengthens into all of time? [Maud]
• Except ... her mind had responded. Except many decisions were not just. Justice has become a shadowy thing, and so many things were done while I was asleep. [Maud]
• She forced her mind to clear, and all at once saw a course of action. She was still free to choose what she wanted. [Quin]
• "Shinobu." She said his name like it was the answer to a riddle that had been driving her crazy, and also like it was a very odd name for someone to have. "I heard that name. He said your name when he was in my house." - "He?" - "John" she whispered. - "Right. Of course," he responded, feeling the deep annoyance he'd always felt when she spoke about John. Apparently she had no trouble remembering him." [Shinobu]
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