We don’t care about what you did yesterday — we care about what you’re going to do tomorrow. - Cory Doctorow

Giant letters march across the dome of the sky: HOME NOT FOUND. Huw, who knows Comic Sans when she sees it, winces in mild disgust.

The opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind.

Take it from someone who's read the Wikipedia entry: this is how the Ottoman Empire was won: madden horsemen fueled by lethal jet-black coffee-mud.