Céline

“I don’t have any tales of partings like this to use as examples or models—in all the stories, when a love ends it’s because one or both of them died, or they had a falling-out, or something equally catastrophic. There aren’t any stories about love ending because it was the natural time for it to end. There’s none about people in love separating as still-beloved friends. And in all the stories, the loves ended because they were bad or wrong or flawed, or the fact that they ended was the flaw, or the end ruined everything that came before.

My lover came into my life and he was full of joy and light. He took me dancing. He kissed me; he whispered my name into my skin until I felt like myself again. He anchored me into the world. He brought me back. He was good and kind, and patient and understanding, and he never asked me for anything but what I was willing to give him. Just because it didn’t last our entire lives doesn’t mean it wasn’t important or precious.”
― Alexandra Rowland

“Since when did you care about the enemy? You know what that word means, don’t you? Or would it help if you looked it up?”

“I know what it means,” she said. “It means what you want it to mean. It means you can do what you damn well like. Do you like having people killed, Notker? Does it make you feel big and strong?”

“Enemy means someone who wants to hurt you,” I said. “Them or us, simple as that.”

“Simple.” She gave me a look I won’t forget in a hurry. “I don’t think there’s any point talking to you. Remember Andronica in The Golden Mask? That’s you, just the wrong way round.”
― K.J. Parker, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It

“She wondered where Oida was, and what he was doing. Somehow, things would be different if he was there; he’d have books, and nice things to eat, and a comfortable coach to ride in and take them somewhere with a roof and clean sheets and a warm fire. Suddenly she saw him as a man in armour, impervious to spears and arrows inside his cap-a-pie of money, charm, success and taste. The whole world could come crashing down, but he’d still have brought her something to read, and figs preserved in honey. It was then that she understood. It was just a matter of semantics, that was all. Like someone who’s learning a foreign language, she’d failed to grasp the true meaning of love. All this time, she’d thought it meant something else, to do with fire in the blood and skin tingling at a certain touch, when really it was all about completely different things—food, shelter, comfort, money, a defensible space, something that would still be there in the morning. Stupid, she thought. It takes a valley full of dead bodies and a burned-out inn and her mother’s grave and a night with Axio and Senza Belot trashing and torching everything in his path to reveal the true definition of an everyday word. Simpler to have bought a dictionary.”
― K.J. Parker, The Two of Swords, Volume Three

“And it’s what’s true now that matters, sure as eggs is eggs. Think about it logically. Unless you’re a bit wrong in the head, you can remember what happened one minute ago clear as day. But you’ll be forgiven for being a bit hazy about the details of something you did or said twenty years ago. So, if there’s a discrepancy, the minute-old truth is far more likely to be correct than an inconsistent version dating back twenty years.

Twenty years ago – longer than that – I was Notker. Right now I’m Lysimachus, and this time tomorrow I’ll be Lysimachus II. And I have the scars to prove it.”
― K.J. Parker, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It