“Deal with all this, live with myself, you mean? I honestly don't know. I stand often enough at the abyss of my soul, asking that same question, looking down into the dark crevices where the black monsters dwell on the bottom. They gaze up at me, and I look them in the eyes. “This also you are,” they say, and I almost fall into the void.”“And then?”Anaxantis shrugged.“And then? I turn around and go do what needs to be done. What else is there?”

“Why, Andrew, why would it irritate me? Do you think that being loved by you is something to be ashamed of? I don't.”

“Let the Gods create the days, and just live through them.”

“History doesn't remember gardens.…You forgot the wise administrators, those who kept the peace, those who brought prosperity. You needn’t feel embarrassed, though. So did history.”

“There always seem to be very rich people, no matter how poor the country,” Thenoclon said.”

“However, what he wanted was impossible: the serenity of the Gods cannot be achieved by the sword.”

“And yet it's there, we witnessed it being lit. And fires once lit have to burn until they spend themselves or someone extinguishes them,” Anaxantis said, with some deep regret coating his voice.”

“Dav­el­lon may be a vil­lage, but the Dav­el­lon House can be any­thing you make it. No­bil­ity has to start some­where. It might as well start with you. Let no­body look down on you, for what­ever rea­son, My Lord. Ti­tles are granted or in­her­ited, no­bil­ity isn't.~Tenaxos I to Landar Parmingh, Baron Davellon”

“Of course he was afraid of war. Only fools are not. Anaxantis was no fool. He was fully prepared to fight, but only as a last resort.”

“Regrets... Regrets are bootless. A vain trick of the mind. An impotent raging against what cannot be changed anyway. A distraction from the moment.”

“Ah, I see. You don't know much about us and the unknown equals the barbaric, the primitive. Although it is you lot who are ignorant.”