“But I am happy. And happiness, I have decided, is a noble ambition.”

“All I ask is that my final months be happy ones, and that I be permitted a husband who will see to my proper Christian beheading and burial.”

“I decided that it was more important to laugh than to eat.”

“Living men are bound by time... Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose those things that are most important, cling more tightly to that which they hold dear. Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love?”

“The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it.”

“I am a foe to tyrants, and my country’s friend.”

“Thank you, sir, but I am perfectly content being the bride of death.”