“See if you can hold off this pack of blood-sucking scavengers. Here’s my duelling sword.” The King handed me… — Iain M. Banks

Pain, or even just discomfort, is like the warning sent by a frontier guard, sir. You are free to choose to ignore it, but you should not be unduly surprised if you are subsequently over-run by invaders.

Truth, I have learned, differs for everybody. Just as no two people ever see a rainbow in exactly the same place—and yet both most certainly see it, while the person seemingly standing right underneath it does not see it at all—so truth is a question of where one stands, and the direction one is looking in at the time.

We only become beasts—we become worse than beasts—when we torment others.