Quotes from K.J. Parker

So, being Artavasdus, instead of diving for cover and shitting himself like any normal human being, or me, he stood there, watched carefully and took notes.

Admiration is a wonderful thing. I like it the same way I like hundred-year-old brandy, and both of them come my way about as frequently. The other similarity is the way it goes to my head,

Running isn't my thing, to be honest with you, though I imagine it could be if I was ever in a battle.

That's not what the past was for, though. It was where the present went to rot down, so you could use it to grow the future. He smiled; nice piece of imagery, but it was too glib to fool anyone.

Now, conceding that Prosper was at least 40 percent full of the stuff that makes roses grow, that still left quite a lot of sheer unparalleled genius.

master of alternatives, the eternal custodian of Plan B;

He looked at me the way the male spider gazes at his beloved. He knows he's going to get eaten afterwards, but it'll be worth it.

It was good to know that memory could be melted down and recast if it came out flawed the first time around, just like a bell.

Getting out of the briar tangle was significantly harder than getting in . . . The brambles ran their fingers down his face and tugged at his clothes like children wanting attention, as if they were sorry to see him go.

For ten days, all I'd had to wash in was the piss-pot, and the nearest water was the pump, five flights of narrow, winding steps down, and loneliness had been the least of my problems, if you count tiny things that bite as company. I'm not the most fastidious of men, but I don't like it when I turn into the sort of creature I'd cross the street to avoid.

Act 2 is always a grind. With the exception of Acts 1 and 3, it's the hardest part of your standard three-act play.

I think that's all the facts I can remember. If you like we can talk a bit more about metaphysics, or I can tell you some stories about my life as a soldier; you could go back and check the references, to give you an idea of the quality of my memory and powers of observation. I'd rather not, though, since you might use them to work out who I could be; somebody important who was at the same battles as I was. Purely by coincidence, you understand.

She drank her wine, looking at me over the rim of the glass. It's a mannerism that has made her very popular with men over the years, and I guess it's like the violin: you have to keep practising even when you're not performing to an audience.

No disrespect to the fire god, naturally; blame it instead on His administration, presumably made up of officers of roughly the same level of ability as their terrestial counterparts. That would explain why the mild storm she'd ordered for Oida hit her instead.

So up onto the ramparts they went, holding hoes and brooms like they were spears. You don't have to do anything, Faustinus told them, just stand there, give the impression there's somebody home. Amazingly, it worked. The enemy stopped and drew up three hundred yards from the wall, sent out scouts to ride up and down and take a good look. Which they were still doing.

What the books don't tell you is, there's a sixteenth way. You can use it when you've got nothing; no stuff, no men and nobody to lead them.

At least we had work to do, and work fills in the time, and time is the enemy.

Only, I'm sure I remember you, because you were riding along down the street on a great big white horse, and people were cheering like you were somebody important.' Poldarn grinned. 'Do I look important?' 'No,' the young man said. 'But neither do a lot of important people.

I shook my head. "Usually when there's an invasion he goes and stays with his cousin the seed-merchant, just across the border," I said. "I gather he prefers it there to here. The Mysians won't bother you at all. Particularly if you buy their baskets.

And another thing. There's no black market in this town. Really. You just can't get anything. And you know why?" "Listen—" "Because you've got the bloody Themes, who should be running the stupid black market, going round telling anyone that if they sell so much as a cashew nut off ticket, they'll get their legs broken. That's just not right. It's tyranny.

In the course of a long (feels that way, anyhow) and eventful life, I've learned that nothing encourages good faith, loyalty and a desire to work tirelessly for the common good like blind terror. If he was scared enough, who knows?

he couldn't even write his name. When he was Emperor, he had to sign documents with a stencil.

After all, what is truth but the consensus of memories of reliable witnesses?

I mention this because that's how the world changes. It's either so quick that we never know what hit us, or so gradual that we don't notice. It's only later, when books are written and scholars decide what mattered and what didn't, that red lines are drawn