“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”
“Outside, the sky was clear, stars gleaming in its ebony vastness like celestial fireflies. It was bitterly cold, and Hywel's every breath trailed after him in pale puffs of smoke. The glazed snow crackled underfoot as he started towards the great hall.”
“The last time Ranulf had run into Sulien, the older man had called him a misbegotten English Judas and spat onto the ground at his feet. Yet now that same man was approaching the bed with a jovial smile, so apparently pleased to see the Judas again that Ranulf half-expected him to announce that a fatted calf had been killed in his honor.”
“Ranulf had spent much of his life watching those he loved wrestle with the seductive, lethal lure of kingship. It had proved the ruination of his cousin Stephen, a good man who had not made a good king. For his sister Maude, it had been an unrequited love affair, a passion she could neither capture nor renounce. For Hywel, it had been an illusion, a golden glow ever shimmering along the horizon. He believed that his nephew had come the closest to mastery of it, but at what cost?”
“Well, dearest, what would you tell a farmer who had an over-abundant harvest? To plant less, of course!"...
"I am not complaining about the frequency of the planting," she said. "I’d just rather not reap a crop every year.”
“A gain I saw that under the sun the race is
not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise,
nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to men of skill
but time and chance happen to them all.”
“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.”
“TIMON
Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,
Here, take: the gods out of my misery
Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy;
But thus condition'd: thou shalt build from men;
Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar; give to dogs
What thou deny'st to men; let prisons swallow 'em,
Debts wither 'em to nothing; be men like
blasted woods,
And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
And so farewell and thrive.
FLAVIUS
O, let me stay,
And comfort you, my master.
TIMON
If thou hatest curses,
Stay not; fly, whilst thou art blest and free:
Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.”
“HR?'
'Human Resources.'
'In Brussels that kind of department is referred to as the Office for Personkind Enablement. Resources sounds like something you dig out of the ground.”
“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.”
“I’ve had a good life, you know that,” he whispered. “Even so, you’re the best thing that’s been in it.”
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