There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.

Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.

Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.

Achamian tossed his hands skyward in dismay. “Foolish boy! How many faiths are there? How many competing beliefs? And you would murder another on the slender hope that yours is somehow the only one?

I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.

Faith is the truth of passion. Since no passion is more true than another, faith is the truth of nothing.

You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.