Havemercy

I don't know," I said. "Whether or not he can write his own name seems to have very little impact on his ability to be an ass.

What I caught that winter was a memory of a purpose.

The Kiril Islands had changed hands more times than a good coin in a whorehouse.

I have always been much cleverer in retrospect.

As it almost always was when I'd been too self-centered to see the truth of the matter, I felt impossibly foolish.

this may come as an immense surprise to you, considering how highly you esteem your intellect, yet I must confess there is a great deal in this world about which you know less than nothing. I say 'less than' because you are informed incorrectly-and being both tenacious and pompous, you cling to this misinformation as a pit bull to the bone, which makes you far more dangerous and contemptible than even the stupidest of men.

Well,” he said, “and this is only my own way of thinking, mind, but when you’re doing something you love—really love—you can’t let the way others play the game get in the way of that, if you follow. It don’t matter if your coach is hassling you, or whether you don’t like how some of your teammates indulge in the sport. When you’re out there, you’ve got a goal to accomplish, and you can’t see to letting all that mishmash weigh you down.

And then, after a period that seemed both as swift as mere minutes and as endless as days, it was done.

I must say the efficiency of this nation in condemning a man is simply astounding. - Margrave Royston

He was goin' on four and he used to eat fireflies. I don't know. I think he thought they'd make him glow.

You're nothing more than a common bully,' he whispered, voice trembling. I'd shaken him for good now, and it was deeper than just the physical side, my knuckles bruising his throat and his back arching for all his so-called defiance. 'I don't care what I am, so long as you're afraid of me.

It was a rare man who had the natural proclivity to do the right thing when the wrong one might save him a share in the punishment or blame.