“But if I broke the First Law, what then? In what court will you have me judged? By what jury? Will you release Tolomei from the darkness to give evidence? Will you seek out Zacharus to read the charge? Will you drag Cawneil from the edge of the World to deliver the verdict? Will you bring great Juvens from the land of the dead to pronounce the sen

His eyes slid sideways to the streets. Different-coloured eyes, Jezal noticed, one blue, one green.

A man who’d done nothing in all his life but evil. And all the while he’d looked at the sky and shrugged his shoulders. Blamed whoever was nearest, and told himself he’d had no choices.

It can be a fearsome weapon, patience. One that few men ever learn to use.

If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a cunt. Simple as that.

Dow frowned as he twisted the haft of his axe this way and that, until the blade came free of Caurib’s ruined skull with a faint sucking sound. “That bitch talks too much,” he grunted.

The First of the Magi spoke the words as though they were lines long rehearsed. “Kanedias came to take me. For seducing his daughter. For stealing his secrets. Juvens would not give me up. They fought, I fled. The fury of their battle lit the skies. When I returned, the Maker was gone, and our master was dead. I did not kill Juvens.”

It can be a terrible curse for a man to get everything he ever dreamed of. If the shining prizes turn out somehow to be empty baubles, he is left without even his dreams for comfort.