Scott Lynch

Damn it, when will you learn that refusing to admit you’ve lost isn’t the same as winning?

Gods, all this maneuvering for moral advantage. You’d think we were married.

“We were sent here to learn from you!”

“You want a lesson, boy? If you find yourself being born, climb back in as quick as you can, because life’s a bottomless feast of shit.”

Maybe this is going to complicate the hell out of things. So what? You’re the complication I want more than anything else. You’re my favorite complication.

“You know, believe it or not, ‘the gods will provide’ is not a fucking plan, lad. You’ve got one hell of a talent for improvisation, but when that lets you down, it lets you down hard.”

“I never would’ve thought—“

“Don’t think,” said Locke. “I’m paid to do that for you.”

“Let’s be obvious. Me brute, you weasel.”

“Agreed. You brute, me charming mastermind.”

I’m not without my sympathies, Lamora. They just don’t necessarily reside with you.

“Nikoros, your job this afternoon is to say yes to anything that comes out of my mouth. The more you rehearse this, the sooner it’ll become a smooth mechanical process allowing no time for painful reflection. Can you practice for me?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a natural.”

People die when they get hanged. It’s why they hang them!

Most of us find it starkly ludicrous that the height of all possible ambition, to the ungifted, must be to drape oneself in crowns and robes.

Refusal noted and cordially declined.