Academ's Fury (Codex Alera, #2)

by Jim Butcher

could tell that the words were precisely what they seemed to be—honest praise and reassurance.

“I must confess that as a rule, things which may not be good for me seem to hold an unwholesome attraction,”

“we all know what is at stake. Recriminations are useless to us for the time being. Our duty now is to assess the damage and take whatever steps we can to mitigate it.”

“After the crisis is past us, we will have time to consider appropriate consequences for the choices made.”

isn’t treason, Sir Miles. It’s the truth. It isn’t a pretty truth, or a happy truth, or a comfortable truth. It simply is.”

Tavi stared at Killian and suddenly perceived not the razor intellect and deadly calm of the Cursor Legate, but the deep and bitter grief of an old man struggling to hold himself together in the face of an overwhelming storm of anxiety, uncertainty, and loss.

You will probably find, in life, that successes and victories tend to overshadow the risks you took, while failure will amplify how idiotic they were.”