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Private misfortunes must never induce us to neglect business.

And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude… I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.

Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.

There is … a clever maxim which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime. Still, from an artificial civilisation have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally become so powerful as to stifle within us all good feelings, and ultimately to lead us into guilt and wickedness...

You have, then, not forgotten that I saved your life; that is strange, for it is a week ago.

I’d been so convinced of that particular narrative I never for one moment stopped to reappraise the situation.

It would have been easy to dislike her intensely, but I actually felt nothing for her at all.

The numbers were too great for HiberTech to hide what had happened. As it was, well-engineered corporate surprise, orchestrated bafflement, faux delight, suitable soul-searching and feigned contrition won the day.

“What do you think?”

“I can hardly contain my indifference.”

“I lost sixty soldiers under my command.”

“Your fault?” I asked.

“No, but they were all my responsibility, so it amounts to the same thing.”

There were the rules we were taught, and there were the rules we did our job by. The two were related, but as distant cousins rather than siblings.

Feedback loops, echo chambers, circular reinforcement. All could play a part in escalating the utterly imaginary to the level of reality, sometimes with fatal consequences.