Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3)

by Joe Abercrombie

It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort.

That’s the trouble with ambition. It’s easy to forget, when you’re always looking upwards, that the only way down from the dizzy heights is a long drop.

First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things.