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January 22 - July 29, 2023
“Steady,” said Leeb, but it came out a squeak that couldn’t have steadied anyone. It might have unsteadied those already steady, indeed.
“If you only listen to lessons you like you’ll learn nothing.
“Time has not been kind to him.” “Time’s kind to no one,” said Shivers,
men’s mercy often runs out the very moment they’re called upon to use it.
No matter how much pride a man has, it don’t take much, in the end, to beat it all out of him. To make him want nothing but for the beating to stop.
“On the right side of history, maybe.” Vick snorted. “The thing about history is you don’t know what the right side is till long afterwards, and by then it hardly matters.” “That’s the sort o’ thing you hear from folk who know they’re on the wrong side.”
“Threats for tomorrow don’t cut very deep when today is so damn threatening.
It was not a rational argument. Facts were useless against it. It was an argument based on faith. It belonged in a temple, not a court.
Chances are that men who’ll hurt folk for one master won’t flinch at hurting folk for another.
“Oh, you’d be surprised how vengeance, falling from a great height, can spatter the most innocent o’ bystanders.
He’d never been one for war cries. Why tell your enemy where you are? They’ll learn soon enough.
He had his mouth open to do it. But why bother? The past isn’t made of facts, not really, just stories people tell to make themselves feel better. To make themselves look better. Everyone was at it.
suppose we can do good things for bad reasons.” “Or bad things for good ones,” he answered.
nothing proclaims disunity like shrill proclamations of unity on every corner.
“You’re the North now, and the North kneels to no one. Besides, a man who’s moved by grovelling will never get enough grovelling for his taste. Let him once set his foot on your back and you’ll have a fucking bootprint ’twixt your shoulder blades till the day you’re buried.
He stood, took the stopper from the decanter with a pleasant clinking of glass. “The Queen of the Northmen!” “Just Black Rikke. If you’ve got the power you don’t need the title.”
Take it far enough, freedom becomes chaos. The voice of the people… is just noise. It is the blather of the lunatics in the madhouse.
“But far as I can tell it ain’t that simple. Right things, wrong things, well… it’s all a matter of where you stand. Every choice is good for some, bad for others. And once you’re chief, you can’t just do what’s good for you, or those you love. You have to find what’s best for most. Worst for fewest.
Lords Isher and Heugen looked smug, but if you let other people’s smugness make you angry you’ll be angry all the time.
