"Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, 'Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That's not woman's work.'It's needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself.'I never!' gasped Sarra, indignant.'You taught me when you were murdered in your own house,' Daine said quietly."

"All bleed who fight with the sword. All confront, with greater or lesser difficulty, the worship of their own flesh. The swordmaiden faces particular obstacles in this matter: she will have seen, in the temples and elsewhere, many images of unscarred women."

"The measure of a man, or a woman for that matter, is not so much how much they have done, but what they have overcome to do what they have done. My favorite poets have said:'Do not go gentle into that good night!'-Dylan Thomas'...Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance ran...'-Rudyard Kipling."

"Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may."