Some folk are wise and some are foolish, but all which matters is that within them flows the blood of life and that life breeds love, and that love, as I believe, although Oro does not, breeds immortality.

And if so, what is Time but as a grain of sand upon the shore ?" "This, Yva; it is ours, who can count on nothing else." "Oh! Humphrey, if I thought that, no more wretched creature would breathe tonight upon this great world." "What do you mean ?" I asked, growing fearful, more at her manner and her look than at her words.
"Nothing, nothing, except that Time is so very short.

A kiss, a touch, a little light and a little darkness, and it is gone.

Ask my father Oro who has lived a thousand years and slept for tens of thousands, as I have, and he will say the same.

It is against Time that he fights; he who, believing in nothing beyond, will inherit nothing, as Bastin says; he to whom Time has brought nothing save a passing, blood-stained greatness, and triumph ending in darkness and disaster, and hope that will surely suffer hope's eclipse, and power that must lay down its coronet in dust." "And what has it brought to you, Yva, beyond a fair body and a soul of strength ?" "It has brought a spirit, Humphrey.