The Tainted Cup Quotes

“Civilization is often a task that is only barely managed. But harden your heart and slow your blood. The towers of justice are built one brick at a time. We have more to build yet.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“That’s the problem with figuring shit out—eventually you run into someone who’d prefer all their shit remained thoroughly unfigured.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“But I am reluctant to assume maliciousness when incompetence is a better explanation”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of the creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish—for what’s a little more unfairness, in this unfair world?”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“So instead of committing robbery, I made tea.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Sen sez imperiya. The Empire is strong because it recognizes the value in all our people. Including you, Dinios Kol. And when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“I see!" said Ana, nodding. "I just have one more question."
"Of course"
"What color was the clay?"
Farazi blinked, confused. "Clay? What clay?"
"The clay you must have stuck in your eyes and ears," said Ana, grinning, "to remain so amazingly fucking ignorant of everything about you.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“But though they receive no worship, it’s the maintenance folk who keep the Empire going. Someone, after all, must do the undignified labor to keep the grand works of our era from tumbling down.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“But its strangest feature is that the more its citizens feel it is broken, the more broken it actually becomes.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Have you ever seen one, Din?” asked Ana. “Or a piece of one, a bone or a segment of chitin?” I shook my head. “Din,” she said tersely, “I am blindfolded, so if you’ve nodded your head, I’ve no fucking idea.” “No, ma’am, I have not.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“We do these ugly, dull things for a reason—to make a space where folk can live, celebrate, and know joy and love.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“What a world it is, Signum,” said Fayazi, “where you are forced to change yourself, break yourself, all for a little scrap of money.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“The emperor offered many blessings to the Legion, it seemed, but precious few for the Iudex. How simple the titans seemed, and how impossible justice felt.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Could have worms,” mused Kitlan. “You goddamned Apoths always think it’s worms.” “That’s because so many people have so many fucking worms.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“The thing about war, boy, is while it happens, you’ve no idea what’s going on—and when it’s over, everyone spends the rest of your life telling you what you did.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Civilization is often a thing that is barely managed.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“We did not talk any more of what we’d witnessed, he at the walls and I in the city. The things we’d seen and done now felt too big for words. Silence was a better language.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“The Empire is strong because it recognizes the value in all our people. Including you, Dinios Kol. And when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“For the empire is huge. Complex. Often unwieldy and slow. And in many places, weak. A massive colossus, stretching out across the cantons, one in whose shadow we all live...and yet it is prone to wounds, infections, fevers, and ill humors. But its strangest feature is that the more its citizens feel it is broken, the more broken it actually becomes.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Keep your hand close to your sword."
I paused. "My sword is, ah... still made of wood, ma'am."
She frowned and cocked her head. "Oh. Well... in that case, make sure your boots are laced up proper, boy, so you can run like hell.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“I glanced down at my boots, now worn and stained from all my travels. They didn’t look quite so bad, I thought. Perhaps they would look even better with a bit more wear.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Yes…” said Kepheus sadly. “It must be a hard thing, to go from the Legion to the Iudex.” “Why so?” “Well, in the Legion, you know each wet season if you have won or lost. Yet in the Iudex, you can do all your duties aright, and catch every crooked soul—but at the end, there is no putting right what wrong was done.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“My eye fell on the sack of talints at my feet, and I reflected that now I really could just walk away with them, if I liked. Yet I decided that the odds of a solitary young criminal with a huge fortune on his person making it through a highly patrolled road that was often pestered with murderous deserters would either be slim to none or none at all. So instead of committing robbery, I made tea.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“For I will still be in need of an assistant investigator,” she said. “And you did a decent job in Talagray.” She thought for a moment. “Could have been cheerier and smiled a bit more, sure, but still, a good job. I would have you keep doing it, if you prefer.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Was that why you asked that Legion commander about the smell of his piss, ma’am?” “Oh, no, not at all. At the time, I was merely curious.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Let us pretend to be professional, you and I, for hell and the gentry await.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“What a thing it is,” I said, “to be rich for a handful of minutes.” I sighed, put it back down on the counter, and pushed it over to him. “Or at least slightly less poor.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“Oh! That dead fucker! Right!”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“That’s the problem with figuring shit out—eventually you run into someone who’d prefer all their shit remained thoroughly unfigured”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“It's such an odd thing, the way you can know someone so perfectly through what they read. We liked the same voices, in the same way.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup