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“Oh, that would be terrible, wouldn't it? To die before we discover death? To be killed before we are scheduled to be killed? To go out swiftly and without pain, rather than to writhe forever on the Shrike's thorns? Oh, terrible thought, that.”

Such an epic series. You could combine all SF stories you’ve ever read, and what you’d end up with is The Sun Eater. It has everything.

“WHY SHOULD MAN EXPECT HIS PRAYER FOR MERCY TO BE HEARD BY WHAT IS ABOVE HIM WHEN HE SHOWS NO MERCY TO WHAT IS UNDER HIM?” - PIERRE TROUBETZKOY

“People aren't rational. You aren't rational. We're not thinking machines, we're—we're feeling machines that happen to think.”

“Silence. The great empire of silence: higher than all stars, deeper than the kingdom of death! It alone is great; all else is small.. She stood beside me, each of us a piece of that silence, small ourselves. But even the very small can challenge empires, or hold them in their hands.”

“Grief is deep water, they say. But not all tears are grief.. I sometimes think we do more harm than good, teaching what we teach. Reason. Reason is such a small part of being human. We scholiasts climb our towers, look at the sky, and forget the world. So often we don't see the truth because we won't look low enough. Chasing reason, chasing facts.. we forget to be human. To be human is the greater thing.”

“I am a conduit. I exist to bridge the gap, and I'd bridge nothing if I only told you what these people said. So I am telling you what they meant, and it will mean as much to you as you can handle.”

… It means nothing to me because I still don’t know what’s going on because the way it’s written is confusing as fuck…

So good. But so long.

“Time cycles. Moments return. We cannot escape our patterns. The same choices—the same sins—return us to the same places.. To fight again, to pay in blood for the same sin: rage.. Was it rage?. Or pride?”

“When the fate of the world hangs in the balance, you want to keep an eye on anyone whose career-defining moment involves consorting with the enemy.”

“It was not grief that pained me then, but love.. Love consumes, so the aphorism goes.. I have not found it to be so. Love is not a burden—though it is a responsibility. A duty. Love is an honor—an office we hold. An oath.. I swore an oath, then. ‘Men will die for this.’”

Still don’t know about this one…

“If we could second-guess vampires, we wouldn't need vampires, eh?”

“And if you burn long enough and bright as I have done, you come back to that simple truth of childhood: the world of the scientists, of engineers and mathematicians, does not exist. We live in stories, in the demon-haunted world of myth. We are heroes and dragons. Evil and divine.”

“As a child, we believe the world enchanted because age has not killed the magic we are born with. As we grow, the simple spells of new sights and far-oft places no longer work on us, and we grow cynical and cold. But in age once more the magic returns, if you are willing and open to it…”

“Your blood and your name do not make you more than other people. Those things belong to your ancestors, and if you are to inherit them properly, you will honor those ancestors by being a good man… Our ancestors became palatine because they did great things. But we are not them, and must do our own great things… To be a good man you must judge a person by his or her actions. By their character.”

“Your blood and your name do not make you more than other people. Those things belong to your ancestors, and if you are to inherit them properly, you will honor those ancestors by being a good man… Our ancestors became palatine because they did great things. But we are not them, and must do our own great things… To be a good man you must judge a person by his or her actions. By their character.”

“If the unknown was hostile, we were probably doomed no matter what we did. The unknown was technologically advanced—and there were some who claimed that that made them hostile by definition. Technology implies belligerence, they said.”

“The privilege of one’s birth is no privilege at all. Only another kind of cage.”

“I knew the look well. It was a look more closely kin to fear than people really believe. A fear born of the fact that though we may come back to a place at the end of our journeys, we never really return, for we are not the same person who departed.”

Sort of getting better. But still don’t really know what’s going on haha.

“It stayed so discreetly in the background, nurtured and carried us and permeated our existence like an unobtrusive god; but like God, it never took your calls.”

Good writing, but I have basically no idea what’s going on right now. I’m not intelligent enough to follow it…

“How to explain the effect of light on one so long in darkness? Light is air; light is shelter; light is water; light is food. Light is camaraderie and happiness. Light is home. The fatigue in her arms and legs vanished. All she wanted to do was descend into that light.”

It’s okay so far.

Such a unique book.