The bravest person I know is afraid of the dark. She sleeps with a night lamp always, but if her friends are threatened? She suddenly thinks she's a bear twelve feet tall and attacks whoever scared her friends.

Tris: "I was reading." Sandry: "You're always reading. The only way people can ever talk to you is to interrupt." Tris: "Then maybe they shouldn't talk to me.

Sandry: "There has to be something we can do." Lark: "We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix." Sandry: "Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.

What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people?

Daja doesn't exactly need to be tested on whether she's honorable or not." "Doesn't she? Don't all of you? This is your first taste of the things which may come from your being powerful mages. People will offer you gold, status, even love. I want to know how you will react. If want to know if your teachers will release greedy, thoughtless monsters into the world.