You got responsibilities when you’re a leader. You got a responsibility not to kill too many of your men. Or who’re you going to lead?

I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a little changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand between you and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe that's what growing up is. Maybe I have grown up.

For the longest time I studied revenge to the exclusion of all else. I built my first torture chamber in the dark vaults of imagination. Lying on bloody sheets in the Healing Hall I discovered doors within my mind that I'd not found before, doors that even a child of nine knows should not be opened. Doors that never close again. I threw them wide.

Few things worth having can be got easily.

Most men have at least one redeeming feature. Finding one for Brother Rike requires a stretch. Is 'big' a redeeming feature?

No half measures. Some things can’t be cut in half. You can’t half-love someone. You can’t half-betray, or half-lie.

When you take a woman away from her man, what you get is a woman who can be taken away from her man.