Nicole

“I cut off his fingers to get him to talk, and when he'd confessed everything I wanted to hear, I had his fucking tongue cut out, and the stump cauterized."

Everyone in the room stared at him.

"I called him an asshole, too," said Locke. "He didn't like that.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra

“He saw the white paper as the great universe of nonexistence. A single stroke would give rise to existence within it. He could evoke rain or wind at will, but whatever he drew, his heart would remain in the painting forever. If his heart was tainted, the picture would be tainted; if his heart was listless, so would the picture be. If he attempted to make a show of his craftsmanship, it could not be concealed. Men’s bodies fade away, but ink lives on. The image of his heart would continue to breathe after he himself was gone.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era

“There's nothing more frightening than a half-baked do-gooder who knows nothing of the world but takes it upon himself to tell the world what's good for it.”
― Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi