I preferred a hard truth to a well-meant lie.
Are you a minor character in my tale, or am I a lesser figure in yours?
All paths are present, always... and we can but choose among them.
It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.
Wars come and go; politics endure.
There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme