All that we were has led us to where we are, but tells us little of where we’re going. Memories are a weight you can never shrug off.

Fear bespeaks of wisdom. Recognition of responsibility.

So you say, with your shiny hair and pouty lips - and those breasts - just wait till you start dropping whelps, they'll be at your ankles one day, big as they are - not the whelps, the breasts. The whelps will be in your hair - no, not the shiny hair on your head, well, yes, that hair, but only as a manner of speech.

It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand.

I warn you all, hatred is finding fertile soil within me. And in your compassion, in your every good intention, you nurture it.

Kallor said: "I walked this land when the T'lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?" "Yes," said Caladan Brood, "you never learn."

Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.