“You have to realistic about these things.”
“What are you going to do?’ whispered Temple.‘There was a time I’d have gone charging over there without a thought for the costs and got bloody.’ Lamb lifted the glass and looked at it for a moment. ‘But my father always said patience is the king of virtues. A man has to be realistic. Has to be.’‘So what are you going to do?’‘Wait. Think. Prepare.’ Lamb swallowed the last measure and bared his teeth at the glass. ‘Then get bloody.”
“You don’t have to be ready. You just have to go.”
“You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you have nothing else.”
“Inquisitor Lorsen's thin lip curled. "There is truly nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish."Cosca's face hardened as he leaned forwards. "Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it - there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so.”
“Very well, Practical Vitari, if you really can’t resist me. You’ll have to go on top, though, if you don’t mind.”