You're a monster. Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise? No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.

Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgment.

A duel is just two murders who agree to take turns trying to kill each other.

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.

. . . All these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators, but as participants, and so have looked at the world, not with my eyes only, but also with their own.

I also remembered that you were beautiful." "Memory does play tricks on us." "No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore.

I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn-that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you're a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale.