History admits no rules; only outcomes.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

Peace, though beloved of our Lord, is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience.

I lost my balance when the train pulled away, but a human crumple zone buffered my fall. We stayed like that, half fallen. Diagonal People.

Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison!

True knowledge without xperience is food without sustenance

I elbowed my way into the grubby café, bought a pie that tasted of shoe polish and a pot of tea with cork crumbs floating in it, and eavesdropped on a pair of Shetland pony breeders. Despondency makes one hanker after lives one never led. Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. "Admire me, for I am a metaphor.