As Long As You Know I Am

To See Human Beings In Agony, To See Them Covered In Blood And To Hear Their Death Groans, Makes People Humble. It Makes Their Spirits Delicate, Bright, Peaceful. It's Never At Such Times That We Become Cruel Or Bloodthirsty. No, It's On A Beautiful Spring Afternoon Like This That People Suddenly Become Cruel. It's At A Moment Like This, Don't You Think, While One's Vaguely Watching The Sun As It Peeps Through The Leaves Of The Trees Above A Well-mown Lawn? Every Possible Nightmare In The World, Every Possible Nightmare In History, Has Come Into Being Like This.

Real Danger Is Nothing More Than Just Living. Of Course, Living Is Merely The Chaos Of Existence, But More Than That It's A Crazy Mixed-up Business Of Dismantling Existence Instant By Instant To The Point Where The Original Chaos Is Restored, And Taking Strength From The Uncertainty And The Fear That Chaos Brings To Re-create Existence Instant By Instant. You Won't Find Another Job As Dangerous As That. There Isn't Any Fear In Existence Itself, Or Any Uncertainty, But Living Creates It.

Mine Was The Unbearable Jealousy A Cultured Pearl Must Feel Toward A Genuine One. Or Can There Be Such A Thing In This World As A Man Who Is Jealous Of The Woman Who Loves Him, Precisely Because Of Her Love?

Just Let Matters Slide. How Much Better To Accept Each Sweet Drop Of The Honey That Was Time, Than To Stoop To The Vulgarity Latent In Every Decision. However Grave The Matter At Hand Might Be, If One Neglected It For Long Enough, The Act Of Neglect Itself Would Begin To Affect The Situation, And Someone Else Would Emerge As An Ally. Such Was Count Ayakura's Version Of Political Theory.

I Had Long Since Insisted Upon Interpreting The Things That Fate Forced Me To Do As Victories Of My Own Will And Intelligence, And Now This Bad Habit Had Grown Into A Sort Of Frenzied Arrogance. In The Nature Of What I Was Calling My Intelligence There Was A Touch Of Something Illegitimate, A Touch Of The Sham Pretender Who Has Been Placed On The Throne By Some Freak Chance. This Dolt Of A Usurper Could Not Foresee The Revenge That Would Inevitably Be Wreaked Upon His Stupid Despotism.