Nate Comstock

“When one is faced with such naked evil, there is a temptation to believe that the commonfolk will see it for what it is. In reality it is tenacious, like a weed. It alters perceptions and tolerances slowly, insidiously. It must be fought constantly, and cut out at the roots.”
― Richard Swan, The Trials of Empire

“The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has lived the future that he onced dreamed, sees life as a tragedy; for he has learned that his power, however great, will not prevail against those forces of accident and nature to which he gives the names of gods, and has learned that he is mortal. But the man of age, if he plays his assigned role properly, must see life as a comedy. For his triumphs and his failures merge, and one is no more the occasion for pride or shame than the other; and he is neither the hero who proves himself against those forces, nor the protagonist who is destroyed by them. Like any poor, pitiable shell of an actor, he comes to see that he has played so many parts that there no longer is himself.”
― John Williams, Augustus

“Tyranny loves apathy, but it fears a sword in the hand of a good man.”
― Richard Swan, The Trials of Empire

“The poets say that one’s fears grow less with trial, that we become men without fear if tried enough. I have not found it to be so. Rather, on each occasion we are tested, we become stronger than our fears. It is all we can do. Must do. Lest we perish for our failings.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Howling Dark