ducky

“Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
― William Ernest Henley, Invictus

“I merely want to put you in a jail," said his Lyctor, now meditative, "and fill up the jail with acid once for every time you made a frivolous remark, or ate peanuts in a Cohort Admiralty meeting, or said, 'What would I know, I'm only God.' Then at the end of a thousand years, you would say, 'Mercy, I have learned not to do any of these things, because I hated the acid you put on me.' And I would say, 'That is why I did it, Lord. I did it for you, and for your empire.' I often think about this," she finished.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Harrow the Ninth

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
― John Banville, The Sea