“Shivers heaved out a sigh. “Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those … you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?”“Idiots?”He looked sideways at her. “It was a different one I had in mind.”“Optimists.”“That’s the one. I’m an optimist.”“How’s it working out for you?”“Not great, but I keep hoping.”“That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.”

“One last chance. That’s all I’m asking.” He had lost count of the number of last chances he had wasted. “Just one more. God!” He had never believed in God for an instant. “Fates!” He had never believed in Fates either. “Anyone!” He had never believed in anything much beyond the next drink. “Just one… more… chance.”“Alright. One more.”Cosca blinked. “God? Is that… you?”Someone chuckled. A woman’s voice, and a sharp, mocking, most ungodlike sort of a chuckle. “You can kneel if you like, Cosca.”

“You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all...fit. Be right.""All my life, more of less"“All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain’t no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I’ve learned … just to stick in the place I’m at. Just to be the man I am.”

“Nothing had worked out the way he’d hoped. He should’ve expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door’s too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can’t do the things he’d done, and hope for happy endings.”

“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”

“You're no fun at all, you boys, you do nothing but worry. You need to think on the sunny side o' this. The worst that can happen is that Bethod don't show!''The worst?' Dogman stared at him. 'You sure? What about if Bethod does come, and his Carls kick your wall over like a pile o' turds and kill every last one of us?'Crummock's brow furrowed. He frowned down at the ground. He squinted up at the clouds. 'True,' he said, breaking out in a smile. 'That is worse. You got a fast mind, lad.'Dogman gave a long sigh, and stared down into the valley.”

“Whirrun ignored ‘em. ‘Then, when I’ve got two cut,’ and he dropped a pale slab of cheese on one slice then slapped the other on top like he was catching a fly, ‘I trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!’‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry.Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.’‘What is it, then?’ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust.‘A whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…”