I will scatter a few nuts on the frosting,’ said Maxwell, and he pushed the lever for that. This sifted handfuls of words like chthonic and heuristic… - R. A. Lafferty

Perfection is nearly always impossible, but it is never difficult. Which is to say that if there is any difficulty to it, any lack of ease, then it has already failed of perfection. All perfect things are easy. But they are not frequent…

… The mark of perfection is its very simplicity. Charles had a knack for untying knots, for resolving difficulties. The knack does not consist of ignoring the difficulties nor in skirting them. It doesn’t even consist of facing them and conquering them in the old copy-book fashion, though apparently they are faced and conquered in another fashion. Or some of them are never conquered at all. Part of the idea is just not to be difficult about difficulties.

If the rest of the idea were understood, then everyone would have perfection; and they do not.

It is said that — Arcadius having offered its weight in gold for the head of Gainas — King Uldin drew out the brains of Gainas and poured in molten lead to win a better bargain with his prize. This part of the story has been doubted, and for no better reason than that it had been told five hundred years earlier of the head of Gaius Gracchus — as though a good trick might not be pulled more than once.

This petty place cannot be Hell, Roadstrum? Ah, but it is my friend. That, you see, is the hell of it.