Governments exist on confidence. Not on liberty. Not on righteousness. Not on force. They exist because people believe that they do. Because they don… - James S. A. Corey

Klinger knew nothing about him but what she’d been told by Laconia. She would have been just as solicitous to anyone who had come in his position. And if someone else had been in her role, he would have treated them the same way he did her. They weren’t people to each other. They were roles. This was etiquette, and the inauthenticity of the situation oppressed him.

She’d stopped looking tired a while ago and had moved on to whatever tired turns into when it became a lifestyle.

Growing older was a falling away of everything that didn’t matter. And a deepening appreciation of all the parts that were important enough to stay.