Terra Pallant

“Mary stared at the dreamlike happenings on the page. Human figures faced each other; the man’s head was a golden ball with rays reaching up to huge stars and out to the distant mountains; the woman’s silver head was sickle-shaped and surrounded by birds like eagles with white beaks. Some of the black letters glowed because they had tips like tiny flames.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Fire, loveliest of the four elements of the world, and yet an element too in Hell. While it burned adoringly in the core of the Temple, it had also scorched the life from a city, this night, and spewed its venom over the land. How strange of God to speak from a burning bush, and of Man to make a symbol of Heaven into a symbol of Hell.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“A river no more begins at its source than a story begins with the first page.”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

“He would at least be remembered in his cultures history books. Destroying two of his emperors revered structures, on the same day, would not go unmentioned.”
― A.R. Merrydew, Inara