“It always amazes me, how swiftly problems can be solved, once you start cutting things off people.”

“We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and find that we are . . . this.”

“All you can do is take each day as it comes. Try and do the best you can with what you're given. You won't always do the right thing, but you can try. And you can try to do the right thing next time. That, and stay alive.”

“One act presses upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then we look up and find... this.”

“People have often accused me of inconsistency but i feel that i have always, at any given junction, done the same thing. Exactly what i pleased.”

“Well, he’s scraping up what there is. Reckon we’ll need every ready hand when it comes to a battle. Yours too, maybe.’‘Oh, you’ll have to hold me back!’ Calder slapped the hilt of his sword. ‘Can’t wait to get started!’‘You ever even drawn the fucking thing?’ sneered Tenways, stretching his neck out to spit again.‘Just the once. I had to trim your daughter’s hairy cunt before I could get at it.”

“If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?”