Rinaldo

“Because good people can turn desperate when the horrors are upon them—especially people whose culture of plenty has left them with no systems to cope with scarcity or cataclysm. Good people will turn monstrous when it’s down to their survival or someone else’s.”
― M.L. Wang, Blood Over Bright Haven

“The world starts with a story. So do dynasties and eras and wars. So does love, and so does revenge. Everything starts with a story.”
― Nghi Vo, The Brides of High Hill

“Were all beings just a thin skin of volition floating on a sea of drives and directives they could not control?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“She did feel everything she’d said. The despair. Who wouldn’t, if they were paying attention? But you didn’t feel it all the time. You walled it up with purpose. With friendship. With vows and work. And you reminded yourself that it was not just you who felt this way, that there were others out there with their own pits and walls and vows and love and work, and you tried to let that make you kind.”
― Max Gladstone, Last Exit