“The skies make no special dispensation for Magi, boy, they piss on everyone the same.”

“Ain't it God's sword, fell from the sky? I thought it had to be passed on. Is it cursed?"Craw took up the reins and turned back to the north. "Every sword's a curse, boy.”

“The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.”

“Mercy and weakness are the same thing in war, and there's no prize for nice behavior.”

“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?”

“Don’t deceive yourself. Everyone is guilty of something, and even the innocent can be a threat. Perhaps it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones, Colonel West, but it’s up to bigger men than us to decide.”

“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.”