Mathilda

“A broken tool myself, I live in a house full of unread books and broken tools, the irreparable detritus of a dead empire. I am the last Roman, the emperor of junk.”
― James Hynes, Sparrow

“Perhaps what Aristotle and Seneca were saying boils down to the same infinite regress, a pair of facing mirrors in which my own image recedes into the distance, until I dissolve in the darkness: I do what I'm told because I'm a slave, and I'm a slave because I do what I'm told.”
― James Hynes, Sparrow

“Instead, I have the freedom of the unremarkable, the powerless, and the insignificant.”
― James Hynes, Sparrow

“... if he climbs just a little higher, he can escape, he can sail away and never come back. He can be Sparrow for ever. But of course, he's forgotten about the string, the one they tied around his leg. He's pulled it as taut as he can, higher and higher, further and further away from the city below, but he can never pull it far enough. He can never pull it until it breaks.”
― James Hynes, Sparrow