Céline

“We can’t let him win. Even if it takes fifty years, or a hundred. You can’t let the bad guys win. It’s not acceptable.”

For Hodda, life is drama. It falls into a set number of clearly defined categories: tragedy, comedy, romance, burlesque, farce. If it’s a comedy, the good guys win and everybody gets married. If it’s a tragedy, the good guys win but everybody dies. But you can’t let the bad guys win. Nobody’s going to pay to see that.

Me, I don’t care about the bad guys, so long as they keep the hell away from me. When they get too close, in my face, I tell lies and run away. That means I’ll never be a hero, but I don’t mind that. I do character parts and impersonations.”
― K.J. Parker, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It

“And it’s what’s true now that matters, sure as eggs is eggs. Think about it logically. Unless you’re a bit wrong in the head, you can remember what happened one minute ago clear as day. But you’ll be forgiven for being a bit hazy about the details of something you did or said twenty years ago. So, if there’s a discrepancy, the minute-old truth is far more likely to be correct than an inconsistent version dating back twenty years.

Twenty years ago – longer than that – I was Notker. Right now I’m Lysimachus, and this time tomorrow I’ll be Lysimachus II. And I have the scars to prove it.”
― K.J. Parker, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It

“Les moralistes qui affirment que l’homme d’État doit être le serviteur de sa nation n’ont rien compris au gouvernement. Gouverner n’est pas un ministère ; voilà bien une idée pour le clergé, un vœu pieux qui peut mener à de dangereuses dérives. La vérité est plus simple : gouverner, c’est comme coucher. Si les deux partenaires aiment ça, ils se confondent. Ils partagent tout. J’ai une connaissance intime de la république. Je sais tout de ses faiblesses : la vanité, la coquetterie artistique, l’affairisme, le clientélisme, la corruption, le populisme, le chauvinisme, la calomnie… Sans oublier le mépris, bien sûr. Autant de petits travers qu’il suffit de flatter pour circonvenir les élites, pour faire brailler la plèbe dans la rue, pour faire crier la république tout entière comme une courtisane. Je baise la république, et je la baise bien. J’ai cerné l’essence même de Ciudalia, et c’est la raison pour laquelle Ciudalia m’aime. Ce qui fait la grandeur de Leonide Ducatore fait la grandeur de Ciudalia. Dès lors, pourquoi me priverais-je de jouir de l’État ? Je le sers en me servant.”
― Jean-Philippe Jaworski, Gagner la guerre

“I’m Ylfing. I care about people, and I’ve been afraid because caring got me hurt, made me miss things that were right in front of me. Easier to just draw away, easier to run from it. But I care. I care and care and care, whether or not the person I care for deserves it. Everyone deserves understanding, at the very least. My greatest strength has always been in looking at someone and finding an inherent spark of goodness in them. This is not to redeem them. Some people are beyond redemption. But even they yearn to be understood, just as everyone does, just as I do. So I look into their hearts and find the jewel among the slop. Except the slop too has value and weight and importance. It completes a person. People soften when they’re around me. At least, they used to when I was young and small and cute. Perhaps they still do—I’ll have to watch for it. I never did anything in particular to merit that softening, besides being soft myself, and kind, and loving. I just reached out to them with my heart and made a connection.

And maybe that’s the key to all of it. Connections.”
― Alexandra Rowland