My dinner party,' Miles grated. 'It's just breaking up.' <i>And sinking. All souls feared lost.</i> - Lois McMaster Bujold

The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.

It reminded him of that definition of his father's. A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground; the stuff in between was just noise.

We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods — all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.