There was a new king and his name was pestilence. And he had created a new law – thou shalt do anything to survive.

The present is all you can truly know of any man, and even of that you can glimpse only a fragment, however long you remain in his company.

The woman never used one word when she could torment ten.

Hope may be an illusion, but it’s what keeps you from jumping in the river or swallowing hemlock. Hope is a beautiful lie and it requires talent to create it for others. And back then on that day when they say it first began, I truly believed that the creation of hope was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies. I was wrong.

Pay heed, my darlings, and always take the greatest care over the company you keep in life: if death strikes you without warning, you may be stuck with them til the moon turns to blood and wouldn’t that be a torment?

They say despair is a terrible thing, but hope is worse: it keeps you shackled for ever, like a dog in a wheel, always running, but never able to go anywhere, save round and round.

I wanted desperately to go on living in someone’s memory. If we are not remembered, we are more than dead, for it is as if we had never lived.

Sometimes mercy is not a kindness and pity is not love.

Reckon it’s best if you don’t have anyone you care about; then it can’t hurt you. Don’t have to be afraid of losing someone if you no one to lose.

You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale.