Ill met by moonlight,' said Deirdre. 'You could still be tied to a stake,' said Random, and she did not reply. - Roger Zelazny

At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time.

I was willing to die fighting, but it was senseless for all these men to go down with me. Perhaps my blood was tainted, despite my power over the Pattern. A true prince of Amber should have had no such qualms. I decided then that my centuries on the Shadow Earth had changed me, softened me perhaps, had done something to me which made me unlike my brothers.

The garden of life never seems to confine itself to the plot philosophers have laid out for its convenience. Maybe a few more tractors would do the trick.