The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.

What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.

Legends are best left as legends and attempts to make them real are rarely successful

Treasures are not won by care and forethought but by swift slaying and reckless attack.

The problems for which I could find no solution in fact had no solution.

All Empires fall, All ages die, All strife shall be in vain. All Kings go down, All hope must fail, But Tanelorn remains Our Tanelorn remains.

Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future.