Folding Knife

by K.J. Parker

He’d moved smoothly from victim to aggressor, without being conscious of any change within himself, so he supposed that really there was no difference between the two, apart from whether you happened to be the stronger or the weaker.

Somehow he’d always assumed that love was something you didn’t really have any say in, like rules and the law and the times when meals were served.

“War’s just violence, and violence is an admission of failure.

My father used to say: every now and then, fly off the handle, overreact, pick a fight for no reason; it makes people a bit more cautious about pulling your tail.”

“That’s different. That’s where the school bully picks a fight with you, and you deck him. The virtue of the Gannarus protocol lies in your attack being unprovoked and gratuitous. If you let the bully start it, you’re inviting his competitors to have a go at you later on, to see if they can do better. But people generally steer clear of someone they suspect of being dangerously unbalanced.”

“My father always used to say, the man who wins in the end is the man who can get the most out of a defeat.

Blessed is the nation, the Patriarch of Perigouna said in one of his sermons in the basilica, whose enemies are idiots.

“Luck’s like a pig. If you push it, it’ll go back on you.”

The priesthood’s a good career, so long as you don’t get bogged down in the religious side of things.”

They were intelligently planned procedures, quickly and efficiently carried out, by men who knew what they were doing. They’d never worked in the past, and this time was no exception.

“Do something, even if it’s pointless. The phantom of achievement, swathed in the illusion of activity.”

“The secret is, always to give something back.”

luck is like an old country bridge: you don’t want to have to rely on it when carrying fifteen tons of gold.

“A good deal is where both sides make a profit,” he said. “That way, both sides will want to deal with each other again. It’s better to keep the other man happy and make ten per cent ten times than rip the other man off and make thirty per cent once.”

“I think that if someone tried to rob you in the street, you’d pick his pocket, sell him a better knife and probably offer him a job as a tax collector.”

I guess, if the value you put on human beings sinks low enough, you stand a fair chance of establishing universal peace and prosperity. Bring those values down, and everybody can afford to be happy. It’s only when you start packing out the shopping basket with luxury goods such as freedom and dignity and the right to self-determination that you price poor folks out of the market.

My mother used to say the fact that he was his own worst enemy was a tribute to his single-mindedness, since there were so many of his friends competing for the honour.”