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“Peter, who broke his enemies on the rack and hanged them in Red Square, who had his son tortured to death, is Peter the Great. But Nicholas, whose hand was lighter than that of any tsar before him, is "Bloody Nicholas". In human terms, this is irony rich and dramatic, the more so because Nicholas knew what he was called.”
― Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

“It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is something I don't want to be wrong about.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“Don't worry. Don't worry. The Devil does none of these things. He neither smokes nor drinks nor engages in revelry, and yet he is The Devil.

--Father Vasiliev, confessor to the Russian Imperial Family”
― Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

“Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham? Ded-a-chek?”
― Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three