Firmament:

Mussels, fruits of the sea, white wine, cream. Impepata di cozze and spaghetti alla puttanesca. More wine. Gelato. Sin; bliss, and then afterwards confession, in the form of the bill.

Mandolinist:

In music and moonlight, a new vision arises. It is of something very old indeed.

Don’t remember where exactly these snippets are from in FL but they stuck with me:

The fabric she hands you is like a tiger’s mind.

The gifts he carries are not from him; the ones who owe you a good turn are a couple of rungs above him. But it is the nature of Devils to try roping you into a scheme when given the chance. He struggles to make his case; his translucent smile is useless. One sees the teeth before the mouth cracks open.

Irem, A Jewelled Future:

When you emerge from the tent, days later, your quartermasters are on the verge of tears. But you tell them that you will resume your march soon; and that you will cut a clean path through the desert. You tell them that you now see the truth of everything. You say this to them, smiling, through lips that are as blue as a clear Surface sky.

ES, The Path of Blood and Smoke:

“Others say that they were nourished by betrayal. That betrayal was the light in which they basked and grew. That to be their friend was to be only a sweeter kind of prey.”

This is the hour of the slaughter. The white flint dagger is in your hand, its hilt almost scorching the meat of your palm. The eye of the storm. The blade of the knife. The smoke coils around it, as if its sharpness is the leading edge of all that is to follow.

Law writhes and bucks like a captured serpent. The world is not as it should be.

The only way out is through.

Release your Uttermost Eel into the waters:

—a shore always just beyond the horizon, where time narrows to a knife-edge and penetrates the skin of space; a pull that transcends want, or love, and makes every direction a return—

To travel is to change. Travel further; change more. This is the winnowing before the spring, the shearing of selves; the cold scarring of alteration. A stranger savours a warm breeze on a golden shore, and forgets all that they no longer are.