Ask yourselves if the gods are angry, you who have seen Harmony come among us, walk among us, touch us, look kindly upon us. We are the Sacred Band of Thebes. We fight in the forefront, therefore we bleed first. We live, therefore we die.

Wisdom, Niko thought as he leaned his cheek against his long-handled rake, cannot be had without price.

Sanctuary is for lovers, not fighters, this season.

The meaning of life, Nikodemos, is to live life with meaning. The purpose of life is merely to live it, perhaps to give it.

In this new world, this day and forever, then, we are not only Thebans - we are all Stepsons. We are all one Sacred Band. If you will have us. And mine will fight by yours, henceforth, as brothers.

It is hard to battle anger, for whatever it wants it pays from the soul.

Here and now was always where Tempus was, not off somewhere in the realm of Greater Good or Mortal Soul or Eternal Consequence. He'd lost the ability to determine greater good, if there was one; his mortal soul he'd given up on long ago. And as for eternal consequence - he was its embodiment.