Nick Irving > Recent Status Updates

These waking dreams are beginning to unhinge me.

I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.

I saw him open his mouth wide - it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.

I went a little farther, then still a little farther - till I had gone so far I don't know how I'll ever get back.

Joaquin had grown accustomed to silence during his hospital stay. Silence was good, he told himself. Silence was comforting. Silence was his new religion.

I had the sensation of floating in space, completely isolated from the real world.

It may sound pretentious, but I've always been courted by death.

'Keep quiet!' I said in a fury. I might just as well have ordered a tree not to sway in the wind.

It felt Joaquin's fear, and it liked it.

"This is beyond your jurisdiction. It is a temporal matter, not a spiritual one."
"The position of the Church here is, regrettably, so intermixed with politics and with the silk trade, that everything touches the safety of the Church. And while I live, by my hope of salvation, no one will jeopardize the future of the Mother Church here!"

Your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.

Samurai should be well versed in the arts of peace to be strong in the arts of war. Q

The day was incredibly cool and sweet, the clouds meandering before a fine southeasterly wind.

He inhaled deep draughts of the clean, glorious air and blood surged through his veins. The joy of life possessed him.

They lust for power, power at any cost. They hide behind a net of poverty and piousness, but underneath, they feed like kings and amass fortunes.

How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.

"A wise mean prepares for treachery, yeah? There are evil men in every province. Some are in high places. We both know the limitless extent of treachery in the hearts of men."

"Yes, I am your enemy, Captain-Pilot John Blackthorne. Completely. But not your assassin. That you will do yourself."

I observed with assumed innocence that no man was safe from trouble in this world.

"Can you swim?"
"Yes."
"Good. I never learned. Too dangerous. Better to drown quickly than slow, eh?" Rodrigues shuddered involuntarily.
"Blessed Madonna, protect me from a water grave! This [ship] is going to get to harbor tonight. Has to."

Is it only a night ago that I was here and terrified on the Night of Screams?

[Kiku] began to sing. First soft, then trilling, soft again then louder, softer and sighing sweetly, ever sweetly, she sang of love and unrequited love and happiness and sadness.

We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. . . We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.

"A man's fate is a man's fate and life is but an illusion."

His eyes were just the end of hell - all pain, articulate.

Baby is now roughly the size of a pumpkin. And will be coming THIS WEEKEND.

"I wandered from village to village. A few days here, half a year there, like a butterfly on the summer's breath."

[His] eyes went to the ship. He had no doubt now that it had been sent by the gods. Yes. But was it as a gift or a plague?

He still felt the horror of the sudden killing in the street, and their smiles did not allay his foreboding.