Nick B

“Soldier’s heart, we called it after the war. I once had a bit of an episode because they had lined the street with flags, and the wind came up and they were all snapping … the sound wasn’t like cannon fire at all, but it still was, you know?” I nodded. I did indeed know. “Then one of the flags came loose and it blew toward me.” He snorted. “Found myself down a stairwell two streets over.” His voice had that light veneer of humor that we all get, because if we don’t pretend we’re laughing, we might have to admit just how broken we are. It’s like telling stories at the bar about the worst pain you’ve ever been in. You laugh and you brag about it, and it turns the pain into something that will buy you a drink.”
― T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead

“Did you hear, boys? The witcher will remain here for three days because that’s his fancy. And I, priestess of Great Melitele, will for those three days be his host, for that is my fancy. Tell that to Hereward. No, not Hereward. Tell that to his wife, the noble Ermellia, adding that if she wants to continue receiving an uninterrupted supply of aphrodisiacs from my pharmacy, she’d better calm her duke down. Let her curb his humors and whims, which look ever more like symptoms of idiocy.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish