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November 24 - December 5, 2023
“A ladder is of no use if all the rungs are at the top,”
“Your Majesty, we are not here to set right all the world’s wrongs.” Orso stared back at him. “What are we here for, then?” Bayaz neither smiled nor frowned. “To ensure that we benefit from them.”
“One cannot despise a thing without acknowledging its importance.”
“The higher you climb, the further you have to fall, and the greater the spectacle when you hit the ground.
Trouble with the good fight, I find… once the fight starts, the good stops.”
you had to take care with the pride of moderately powerful men. They bruised much more easily than the truly mighty.
Loved as only politicians free from power—and therefore from disappointment—ever can be.
“Principles are like clothes,” said Vick, straightening her jacket. “You have to change them to suit the audience.”
She wondered if it helped, to believe in God. Whether it was reassuring or terrifying, to look at all this shit and know for sure it was part of
some grand plan.
“Whatever it costs,” said Vick. “That’s what His Eminence told me.” Tallow had that worried look again. “Easy to say for him who won’t be paying.”
Rare anger can be inspiring. Frequent anger becomes contemptible.”
Hoping for a thing often seems the best way o’ bringing on the opposite.”
“The first weapon you bring to any fight ain’t a spear or an arrow or an axe.” Flick blinked at him. “Sword?” “Surprise,” said Clover. “Surprise makes brave men cowards, strong men weak, wise men fools.”
“You want to impress a girl, take a bunch o’ flowers.” Flick gave a sad sigh. “You want to impress a King o’ the Northmen, bring a sack o’ heads.”
“Never thought o’ myself as a man who fills sacks with heads.” “No one sets off in that direction,” said Clover, puffing out his cheeks one more time. “But before you know it, there you bloody are.”
“Help with strange problems comes from strange people.”
The older you get, the more you realise the grown-ups won’t suddenly walk in and set things right. You want things right, you have to put ’em right yourself.” “With your bones and your brains, eh?” “And your heart, Rikke. And your heart.”
Heroism makes fine entertainment but sooner or later someone has to get things done.”
he was dragged in so many different directions at once that it took all his energies to stand still.”
“Older men on both sides have, perhaps, become entrenched in their positions. Sometimes it takes younger men to find new ways forward.”
People like things that are simple. Black and white. Good and evil. They want to make a choice and tell themselves they were right. But as His Eminence is fond of saying, the real world is painted in greys. The truth is complicated, full of mixed emotions and blurred outcomes and each-way bets. The truth… is a hard sell.”
“What use are straight answers in a crooked world?”
it is the fate of hope to end in disappointment, as it is the fate of light to end in darkness and life in death. They are still worth something while they last.”
“Fear is like cold water. A little is a fine thing, it fixes you on what counts. But too much will freeze you. You must make a box inside your mind, and put your fear inside, and lock it.”
For what Savine had spent on that one dress, which Liddy would help cut her out of in a few hours and she’d never wear again, she could’ve paid her workers on the canal more’n they’d asked for, and got the thing dug without one bone broken. For what her father the Arch Lector had spent on the wine today, maybe he could’ve built some better houses in Valbeck, and folk wouldn’t have been stuck in rotten cellars, and the Breakers wouldn’t have risen up, and two hundred good people wouldn’t have been hanged. For what Lord fucking Isher had spent on this dinner for seven hundred, the valley Broad
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loyalty? A trick those with power played on those without to make them act against their own interests.
“Knowledge is the root of power, Juvens said.”
“The one undeniable thing about the future,” murmured Orso’s mother in Styrian, “is that it comes to you, ready or not, without need for a conveyance.”
They say belief is righteous, but to Muslan only doubt was divine. From doubt flows curiosity, and knowledge, and progress. From belief flows only ignorance and decay.
That the Union was itself a wheel, designed not by a single engineer but by a web of mutual interest, hidden influence and collective greed, to raise up the rich and drag the poor down into the churning waters. Well, now the wheel would turn, as wheels are made to do, and drive down the privileged, and lift up the downtrodden, and there would be justice. There would be justice, and equality, and plenty for all.
The time comes when you realise the world is not yours any more. The best you can do is pass it on to your children.”
“Winning teaches you nothing,” said Tunny. “You see what a man really is when he loses.”
“Imagine how much it cost to put on.” “Think what you could buy with it,” said Tallow, firelight glinting in the corners of his big, sad eyes. “The folk that could be fed, and clothed, and housed. Spend it wisely, you might avoid the fight in the first place.”
Looked a lot like they did, really. Like they were advancing at a bloody mirror. It was mad, wasn’t it? It was mad. He had nothing against these fools, that he had to try to kill them, and for damn sure he’d done nothing to them that they should want to kill him.
Bloody hell, it was hard work, harder work than anything he’d ever done and for no reward but dead men.
“Bravery’s not about feeling no fear,” he said, turning the man firmly around. “Bravery’s about standing anyway.
“Maybe’s a game with no winners.” Shivers
“I let go o’ my regrets. You’ll swim better without their weight.”
being right is of little value in war.
