One learns better than to hand one’s choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns. - Lois McMaster Bujold

The trick of handling horses isn’t to be faster than the horse, or stronger than the horse. That pits your weakness against his strengths. The trick is to be smarter than the horse. That pits your strength against his weakness, eh?

Don’t be afraid,” she said. “The dead cannot hurt you. They give you no pain, except that of seeing your own death in their faces. And one can face that, I find.”

Yes, he thought, the good face pain. But the great — they embrace it.

Mira does not gossip about her clients. Very rigid rule, I gather. The highest rank of Lodi courtesans don’t; that’s part of how they became the highest rank.