“The thought of your disembodied network repulses me, but I look at you, Red, and see much of myself: a desire to be apart, sometimes, to under stand who I am without the rest. And what I retum to, the me-ness that I know as pure, inescapable self is hunger. Desire. Longing, this longing to possess, to become, to break like a wave on a rock and reform, and break again, and wash away. This is a necessary part of any ecosystem, but it unsettles others, this inability to be satisfied. It is diffcult-it is very difficult, to befriend where you wish to consume, to find those who, when they ask "Do I have you still", when they end a letter with "Yours", mean it in any substantive way.” LoveSelf Book:This Is How You Lose the Time War Source: This Is How You Lose the Time War
“But you don’t change, or learn, or offer. You’re just you, always. You didn’t need me. And when you get where you’re going, you’ll leave, without a thought for what remains behind.” SelfChangeLeave Book:Empress of Forever Source: Empress of Forever
“You’re not who you think you are,” Viv said. “You’re a dream. That’s all. But don’t take it too hard. So are the rest of us.” SelfDreamExistenceExistentialismal Book:Empress of Forever Source: Empress of Forever
“The crowns trap our selves. They carve us off from the world. But what is the self? There are pieces of me in all of you, and pieces of you in me. We are all empty of inherent form. Trace the threads of each of us, and you find not just the others, but the entire universe. And what crown could bind the whole universe?” SelfPhilosophyUniverseEmptinessAttachmentBondBoundary Book:Empress of Forever Source: Empress of Forever
“We are not complete in ourselves without others, without a world to complement our self-conception—and were we to become so complete, we could not bear it! The fullness of ourselves would break us. We burn. The point of Figment/Fragment/Filament”—claws spread to encompass the whole warehouse space—“is to reflect, refract the beauty of physical form, the glorious futility of our quest for complete knowledge, mastery, or independence.” SelfIdentityOthersSelf Conception Book:The Ruin of Angels Source: The Ruin of Angels