If you have friends who work in intelligence, do not throw them surprise birthday parties. One of two things will happen. Either they’ll discover your plans and ruin the effect, or you’ll take them by surprise and leave their nerves jangling for the next eighteen months.

which Saudi prince likes to attend BDSM parties in Berlin,

They could have stocked a pour-over setup or a French press or even an AeroPress. But no, our coffee was all pods, no beans.

you can’t extract the terror from the power.

To make a life together was to be forever putting ourselves at each other’s mercy, chamber loaded, safety off.

The moral of Damocles’s story is to beware envying the lives of the powerful, for a life of power is a life lived in terror.

With a few notable exceptions, the profoundly unimaginative suburban office parks are full of buildings built for people who couldn’t care less because they live on the internet, meatspace being but a poor shadow of the digital dimension they can bend to their wills with a single commit.

Caroline wasn’t a person. She was a fractal.

Basically, a fairy tale right up the Grimm brothers’ alley. Have you actually read that shit? It’s dark.