For mile after mile the strangler vines choked the sal trees, one grey trunk encircling another, until the whole jungle resembled some terrible tangled knot in which it was impossible to tell murderer from victim.

Don’t threaten me, you piece of filth.

The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little. You’ve done well, and honorably.

To paraphrase Montaigne—even when you’re sitting on the highest throne in the world, you’re still sitting on your arse.

Would you rather be hungry or dead?

For decades, chalk and alum have been added to bread, and burnt corn and peas ground up to make coffee. Vinegar is rendered sharper by the addition of sulphuric acid, arrowroot is added to milk to thicken it, mustard is eked out with flour, strychnine is added to beer for bitterness and green vitriol to encourage a foaming head. And these are but the harmless manipulations.

Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.