How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It (The Siege #2)

by K.J. Parker

what the people want is something that looks at first sight like real life, but which actually turns out to be a fairy tale with virtue triumphant, evil utterly vanquished, a positive, uplifting message, a gutsy, kick-ass female lead and, if at all possible, unicorns.

Death is like real estate; it’s different from everything else in its category because of its permanence.

Act 2 is always a grind. With the exception of Acts 1 and 3, it’s the hardest part of your standard three-act play.

rumour is the ultimate oyster, building layer upon layer of glittering shiny stuff round a tiny speck of fact.

it’s possible to build a beautiful house on the lip of an active volcano, with all the hot water you could ever want, and restructure your mind so you don’t actually think about what you’re doing, or what will inevitably happen.

One man’s opinion is another man’s prejudice is another man’s bigotry. Have opinions, by all means, but keep the nasty things to yourself.

What, after all, is belief but knowing something without

(The world is full of idiots, and always has been. But sometimes I wonder why such a disproportionate quantity of them end up running other people’s lives.)

Personally, I always feel that survival is cheap at any price and it puzzles me that so many men in authority don’t seem to see it that way.

Moral: it’s amazing what people will stand for, if the government tell them to.

She shrugged. It’s a beautiful thing to watch when she does that. “You do read a lot of books,” she said. “Full of good ideas, some of them.”