"I was serving as a Trustee with my companion at the time. Guy was headstrong. A loner. The universals under his leadership had stopped offering the shared bond to the Society, wanting to keep their powers to themselves. We were riven with petty feuds and rivalries as a result. I thought I understood him; I, who do not like to mix others out of my element, believed I comprehended his desire to shut his mind away from everyone else. But I was wrong. He shut himself off because he was proud, too proud to share with others even the crumbs from the banquet of his gift."

     The reason I chose this quote is because this is the first time the book talks about the past. Many times through out the series, the author mentions the history of the society without actually giving any real details. This passage gives a much better picture of how the organization was many years ago when universals were common. It also gives a brief description of the ancient rock dwarf Gard, whose past has been long and mysterious. In the sense of discovering what the society and the universals where like sixty plus years ago, this is one of the most important paragraphs in the book series.