“Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation. None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve. To face death is to stand alone.”
― Toll the Hounds
― Toll the Hounds
“The world, someone once said, gives back what is given. In abundance. But then, as Kallor would point out, someone was always saying something. Until he got fed up and had them executed.”
― Toll the Hounds
― Toll the Hounds
“It is because we understand you, Toblakai, that we do not set the Hounds upon you. You bear your destiny like a standard, a grisly one, true, but then, its only distinction is in being obvious. Did you know that we too left civilization behind? The scribblers were closing in on all sides, you see. The clerks with their purple tongues and darting eyes, their shuffling feet and sloped shoulders, their bloodless lists. Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!’ The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. ‘Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?’
Karsa grinned. ‘Why, a civilized one.’
‘Indeed!’ Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. ‘And you doubted this one!”
― Toll the Hounds
Karsa grinned. ‘Why, a civilized one.’
‘Indeed!’ Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. ‘And you doubted this one!”
― Toll the Hounds
Bret’s 2025 Year in Books
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