I am always yours to call, wherever the sea can reach.

But we're dying here.

Order is its own reward.

Gather the shards of your courage. Patch together what resolve you can. We'll find this thing - and kill it.

If you want to write something completely unique, you will probably fail or at best write something without redeeming value. The mind works in certain patterns: the mind organizes facts in story form; it is your commonality with that body of human thought that makes a good book, not its estrangement from the common values that humans share.

Wisdom, Niko thought as he leaned his cheek against his long-handled rake, cannot be had without price. And that price is blood. The sound of it in your veins. The pound of it in your head. The volume of it in a human body; the sickness when you've spilled it.

I want to live like a man.