Red Seas Under Red Skies

I don’t want you to agree with me; I want you to use your misplaced acorn of a brain before the squirrel comes looking for it again.

“I say again, impossible.”

“And I correct you again. Difficult. ‘Difficult’ and ‘impossible’ are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common.”

“What’s your hand [of cards] look like?“

“A parched desert...How’s yours?“

“A wasteland of bitter frustration.“

I find it best to make corpses of complications.

By rights he was still outrunning his age, still ahead of most men nearing threescore years, but he knew deep in his heart that there would never be any way of running fast enough.

“Here's to charming losers, I suppose.“

“If only we knew where to find some.“

”Is this man, ah, senile?”

”He’s absolutely competent,” she answered coldly.

”I assure you I am,” roared Cordo. Anger changed his countenance utterly. ”And I will not be put off from business by assassins in my own bedroom! Now, you will either kill me immediately or negotiate the price of my release!”

I make it a point never to trust men with weapons to my windpipe.

“When I get this door open, you’re dead, Jean!“

“When you get that door open? I look forward to many long years of life, then.“

“We met five years ago.“ Jean scratched his beard. “On a sea voyage. We became business partners out of sheer boredom. Since then we‘ve been inseparable.“

“Except that my plan calls for me to be plotting your death.“

“Yes, but I don‘t know that, do I? Boon companion! I suspect nothing.“

“Chump! I can hardly wait to see you get yours!“

Master Kosta...What a pleasure! Selendri tells me you’ve expressed an interest in getting killed.

I’m losing my taste for subtlety as fast as I’m depleting my supply.

“We already know how too—”

“I don’t care what you think you know, Kosta. Until further notice, we’re gonna presume that you’re too dumb to count to one.”

“You needed a bath,“ Jean interrupted. “You were covered in self-pity.“

”Oh, gods,” he cried. ”Oh, gods protect me! It’s you!”

“Of course it’s me,“ said Locke. “You just don’t know who the hell I am yet.“

As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It‘s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.

“I suspect that drink has made you impulsive.“

“Drink makes me see funny; the gods made me impulsive.“

Some mysteries are better off with their throats slit.

The trouble with creating military dictators, Locke reflected, was getting rid of them after the immediate crisis was past.

Only gods-damned fools die for lines drawn on maps.

It had the expression common to all kittens, that of a tyrant in the becoming.

You’re ten pints of crazy in a one-pint glass.

“That’s a sweet piece,“ said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. “You didn’t snatch that off a street.“

“No,“ said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. “I got it from the neck of the governor’s mistress.“

“You can’t be serious.“

“In the governor’s manor.“

“Of all the—“

“In the governor’s bed.“

“Damned lunatic!“

“With the governor sleeping next to her...It is possible,“ said Locke with a sheepish grin, “that I have been slightly too bold.“

“What do you have to say to that?“

“Oh, very little, to be sure, Master Kosta. It’s so hard to think, overawed as I am with the sublime genius of your plan.“

“That bears some vague resemblance to sarcasm.“

“God forfend,“ said Jean. “You wound me! Your inexpressible criminal virtues have triumphed again, as inevitably as the tides come and go. I cast myself at your feet and beg for absolution. Yours is the genius that nourishes the heart of the world.“

“And now you’re—“

“If only there was a leper handy,“ interrupted Jean, "so you could lay your hands on and magically heal him.“

Time went by with all the speed of a sleepless night.