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Midnight birdsong on the longest day of the year. When the birds sing in the deep darkness, it is how I imagine the end of the world would sound. For a little photosensitive robins in the city, the end of day never comes, it is for ever day. They sing at night because of the noise, not the light, in the dark and quiet night, their singing is not the pleasure it sounds, but a huge effort for those little birds, for which they exhaust themselves completely, they sing at midnight because their song must, and only then can be heard. They sing just to let each other, us, know they are here, they are alive

My cousin's death has invited all deaths. I can't breathe with this future grief.

The jade hare of the moon rests in the west, while from the east rises the golden bird of the sun.

The five virtues — civility, martial prowess, courage, benevolence, and trust-worthiness.

Discoverers of forgotten truth Or mere companions of my youth, All, all are in my thoughts tonight, being dead.

West of Heaven's temple, star, and pillars far, do rest stone stairs that moss curtains guard.

Under the flickering lamp post, the stardust glowed a faint blue. I stared at the machine as I took each step, and more and more strongly I inhaled a sharp bitterness. The smell of freshly ground stars, like a field of crops rotting in a snow-covered land, lost in the capsule of time. The smell of dead stars.

The beast in your blood must be made to serve you. There is a wolf in your veins, and it is vicious. Do not be its slave.

A person whose desires and impulses are his own — an expression of his nature as shaped and modified by his culture — is said to have character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own has no character, no more than a steam engine has character.

A weapon is nothing more than hard, sharp steel—a tool, only as good as the one who wields it.

Hate does no one any good. Sometimes, killing must be done, but never do it with hate in your heart—it will consume you, like maggots festering beneath the skin.

Travel the soul road with a blade in your fist.

This is a world of blood—of tooth, claw, and sharp iron. A world of short lives and painful deaths.

There comes the shadow-dark dragon flying, The gleaming serpent, up from Dark-of-Moon Hills; He flies over the plain, and in his pinions he carries corpses

The past runs deep in our blood and bones: a rope we cannot see, binding us to it, whether we like it or not.

Hard words are needed for this hard world.

While civilisation remains such that one needs distraction from time to time, 'light' literature has its appointed place; also that there is sheer skill, or native grace, which has more survival value than erudition or intellectual power.