The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin #5)

by Daniel Abraham

I think they wear the goddess like a blindfold and swing their knives on faith.

“We only understand other people by imagining what we would do in their position. What we would have to feel to do what they have done. If we can’t put ourselves into that place, then we can only guess.”

Thoughtfulness and kindness and love, I contend, are so much the way we expect the world to be that they become invisible as air. We only see war and violence and hatred as something happening, I suggest, because they stand out as aberrations. In my experience, even in the midst of war, many lives are untouched by battle. And even in a life of conflict, violence is outweighed by its absence.”