King Richard Quotes

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

You're asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me," Gansey said. "Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we don't want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we don't want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why?

Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.

Noah crouched over Gansey's body. He said, for the last time, 'You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.' Gansey died. 'Goodbye,' Noah said. 'Don't throw it away.' He quietly slid from time.

Wanting to live, but accepting death to save others: that was courage. That was to be Gansey's greatness.

It'll be OK. I'm ready. Blue, kiss me.

I take it we're friends now," Henry said. "We must be," Gansey replied. "Jane says it should be so." "It should be so," Blue agreed.

In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . .

You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

If Glendower had not saved Gansey's life, he did not know who to thank, or who to be, or how to live.

Lunacy is when you can’t see the seams where they stitched the world together anymore.

Then you can blame it on your parents,' I said, smiling. 'Won't that be a relief?

Time tugged at his soul.

As he stepped out of the science building, he tipped his head backward, as if Ronan Lynch - dreamer of dreams, fighter of men, skipper of classes - might somehow be flying overhead. He was not.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

Gansey's phone buzzed. "Gansey, man, is this diseased tree cutting into your digital time?" Ronan asked. The fact was the digital time was cutting into his diseased tree time.

Say your name over two hundred times and discover you are no one.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, For Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Adam Parrish and his band of merry men,” Mr. Gray admitted. “And this dangerous world they tread.” “That’s a strange way of putting it. I would have said Richard Gansey and his band of merry men.” He inclined his head as if he could see her point of view as well, even if he didn’t share it.

One of the good things about a Catholic church is that it isn't respectable," she had told Richard. "You can find anyone in it, from duchesses to whores, from tramps to kings.

The two-minute disparity prematurely aged Adam Parrish. He liked it when people knew how to do their jobs. "Say something," Gansey said. "That bell." "Everything is terrible," agreed Gansey.

Where the hell is Ronan?” Gansey asked, echoing the words that thousands of humans had uttered since mankind developed speech. As he stepped out of the science building, he tipped his head backwards, as if Ronan Lynch – dreamer of dreams, fighter of men, skipper of classes – might somehow be flying overhead.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed King;

Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king'd again: and by and by Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing.

You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there,

It shouldn't have happened at all, but their friendship had been cemented in only the time it took to get to school that morning - Adam demonstrating how to fasten the Camaro's ground wire more securely, Gansey lifting Adam's bike halfway into the trunk so they could ride to school together, Adam confessing he worked at a mechanic's to put himself through Aglionby, and Gansey turning to the passenger seat and asking, "What do you know about Welsh kings?

Are you coming to me for wisdom? Gansey shook his head head. ‘Courage.

Gansey looked angry for approximately the length of time it took for a late butterfly to bluster by them in the autumn breeze.

He had had his own feelings hurt over and over by Adam, even when Adam had meant no harm. Some of the worst fractures had appeared because Adam hadn't realized the he was causing them.

It's like practicing pole vaulting your entire life, and then getting to the olympics and saying, ‘what the hell did I want to jump over this stupid bar for?

...we are going to understand all about the difference between people and pieces of paper in a file, and the difference between doing your job and getting jobbed...

Life will deal me many different hands, some good, some bad (maybe they've already been dealt), but from here on in, I'll be turning my own cards. —Alton Richard

Talk to me, Richard. It isn’t difficult. Move the teeth and agitate the tongue. Tell me news of the family. Am I superseded yet? Oh, Richard, a blush!

and Gansey, hearing the longing in her voice like he was being undone, like his own feelings were being unbearably mirrored. I can't come? Gansey asked. Yes, you can meet us there in a fancy plane, Henry said. Don't be fooled by his nice hair, Blue interjected, Gansey would hike. And warmth filled the empty caverns in Gansey's heart. He felt known.

Craziness is only a matter of degree, and there are lots of people besides me who have the urge to roll heads. They go to stock-car races and the horror movies and the wrestling matches they have in Portland Expo. Maybe what she said smacked of all those things, but I admired her for saying out loud, all the same--the price of honesty is always high. She had an admirable grasp of the fundamentals. Besides, she was tiny and pretty.

Gansey knew enough people with secrets not to be dazzled into easily using them as currency.

Things hurt more when you were alone, that was all.

Sometimes the gods give you a break.

Wenn die Intelligenten einen schlechten Charakter haben, so zeigt sich das, und wenn sie keinen schlechten Charakter haben, dann sind sie so leicht auszurechnen wie Quadratwurzeln.

Определение полного мудака, я считаю, это когда кто-то не верит в то, что видит.

There he is,” Henry said. “Toga party tonight, Richard, at Litchfield House. You should bring your boys and your child bride.

Wahnsinn ist, wenn man nicht mehr die Nähte sehen kann, mit denen die Welt zusammengenäht ist.

You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel

Pitiful and pitied by no one, why have I come to the ignominy of this detestable old age, who was ruler of two kingdoms, mother of two kings? My guts are torn from me, my family is carried off and removed from me. The young king [crown prince Henry, †1183] and the count of Britanny [prince Geoffrey, †1186] sleep in dust, and their most unhappy mother is compelled to be irremediably tormented by the memory of the dead. Two sons remain to my solace, who today survive to punish me, miserable and condemned. King Richard [the Lionheart] is held in chains [in captivity with Emperor Henry VI of Germany]. His brother, John, depletes his kingdom with iron [the sword] and lays it waste with fire. In all things the Lord has turned cruel to me and attacked me with the harshness of his hand. Truly his wrath battles against me: my sons fight amongst themselves, if it is a fight where where one is restrained in chains, the other, adding sorrow to sorrow, undertakes to usurp the kingdom of the exile by cruel tyranny. Good Jesus, who will grant that you protect me in hell and hide me until your fury passes, until the arrows which are in me cease, by which my whole spirit is sucked out?" [Third letter to Pope Celestine (1193)]

You’re on, Ted,” I told him. “Your big chance, boy. Don’t blow it. Folks, this kid is going to dance his balls off before your very eyes.

If you think someone is seriously on the prod for your ass, it keeps you awake.

Sie pflegten mir Angst zu machen, und sie machen mir immer noch Angst, aber jetzt langweilen Sie mich auch noch, und ich habe mich entschlossen, das nicht mehr hinzunehmen

Do you know why they call me the Count? Because I love to count! Ah-hah-hah! - The Count Sesame Street

Ronan replied, ‘I’m waiting for you to tell me what to do, Gansey. Tell me where to go.

Той не съжаляваше, че не постъпи в колеж. Колежът е за хора, които не знаят, че са умни.

It was this: Gansey saying, "I like you an awful lot, Blue Sargent." It was this: Blue's smile – crooked, wry, ridiculous, flustered. There was a lot of happiness tucked in the corner of that smile, and even though her face was several inches from Gansey, some of it still spilled out and got on him. She put her finger on his cheek where he knew his own smile was dimpling it, and then they took each other’s hands, and they climbed back up together. It was this: this moment and no other moment, and for the first time that Gansey could remember, he knew what it would feel like to be present in his own life.

Gansey could see precisely the argument that it was heaving toward. Adam would shoot something cool and truthful over the bow, Ronan would fire back a profanity cannon, Adam would drip gasoline in the path of the projectile, and then everything would be on fire for hours.

Life repeats Shakespearian themes more often than we think. Did Lady Macbeth, Richard III, and King Claudius exist only in the Middle Ages? Shylock wanted to cut a pound of flesh from the body of the merchant of Venice. Is that a fairy tale?

aber es gab keine Razzien in den Lasterhöhlen mehr. Jedermann wusste, dass Lasterhöhlen jedem wirklich revolutionären Klima abträglich waren.

Vielleicht gab es nicht mal einen Regenbogen, geschweige denn einen Topf mit Gold.

It just...it seems hard to say anything that isn't the wrong thing.

Mr. Grace sounded like a very small child, helpless, hopeless. I had made him fuck himself with his own big tool, like one of those weird experiences you read about in the Penthouse Forum. I had taken off his witch doctor's mask and made him human. But I didn't hold it against him. To err is only human, but it's divine to forgive. I believe that sincerely.

Somewhere along the way, during this hunt for Glendower, he'd forgotten to notice how much magic there was in the world. How much magic that wasn't just buried in a tomb. He was feeling it now.

Es gibt einen Ort in uns, wo es praktisch die ganze Zeit regnet, die Schatten immer lang und der Wald voller Ungeheuer ist.

-Atención -decía Bobby Thompson-. Éste es uno de los lobos que camina entre ustedes.

Gansey turned to Adam, finally. He was still wearing his glorious kingly face, Richard Campbell Gansey III, white knight, but his eyes were uncertain. Is this okay? Was it okay? Adam had turned down so many offers of help from Gansey. Money for school, money for food, money for rent. Pity and charity, Adam had thought. For so long, he’d wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam. Now he could see that it wasn’t charity Gansey was offering. It was just truth. And something else: friendship of the unshakable kind. Friendship you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come back stronger than before. Adam held out his right hand, and Gansey clasped it in a handshake, like they were men, because they were men.

Throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread, like you; feel want, Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, How can you say to me I am king?

Even the truest knight cannot protect a king against himself

Yes, content is king but excellence is his queen. ~ Onyi Anyado.

Two years ago. To the best of my recollection, that was about the time I started to lose my mind.

Wenn man sich für jemanden verantwortlich fühlt, kann es sein, daß man ihn schließlich haßt.

Ich war gerade nahe daran, zu erkennen, daß man jeden durchschauen kann, wenn man einen Knüppel oder Schraubenzieher hat, der groß genug ist.

Sie würden ihm helfen, ihn heilen. Arzneien und Ärzte. Eine Änderung der Einstellung. Dann Frieden. Seine Streitsüchtigkeit würde wie Unkraut aus ihm herausgejätet werden.

...sie würden Christus persönlich überfallen, um ein Pfund Salami zu ergattern.

Call me Richard. That’s my real name. Call me that.

The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays such a significant role in the first Christmas story. For Christmas began in a humble, hay-filled box of splintered wood. The Magi, wise men who had traveled far to see the infant king, laid treasure-filled boxes at the feet of that holy child. And in the end, when He had ransomed our sins with His blood, the Lord of Christmas was laid down in a box of stone. How fitting that each Christmas season brightly wrapped boxes skirt the pine boughs of Christmas trees around the world.

Francis stared down at the Duchess of York's letter. He swallowed, then read aloud in a husky voice, "It was showed by John Sponer that King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was through great treason piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City." As Margaret listened, the embittered grey eyes had softened, misted with sudden tears. "My brother may lie in an untended grave," she said, "but he does not lack for an epitaph.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich--yes, richer than a king-- And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Herk threw up the mouse, the hamburger he'd eaten for lunch, and some pasty glop that looked like tomato soup. He was just starting to ask his mother what was going on when she threw up. And there, in all that puke, that old dead mouse didn't look bad at all. It sure looked better than the rest of the stuff.

When I turned the corner, I saw Toni waving at me from the elevator. I think I've already told you how it made me feel to see her smile and wave at me. You can have your sunsets and waterfalls. If a piano were to suddenly fall on my head, that's the image I'd want forever engraved in my mind. —Alton Richard

No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let's choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence: throw away respect, Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while: I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king?

Henry shuffled the jewelled insect back out of his pocket. It amber heart warmed light through the pit again. “Back in the lab, of course, as father dear tries to copy it with nonmagical parts. My mother told me to keep this one to remind me of what I am.” “And what is that?” The bee illuminated both itself and Henry: its translucent wings, Henry’s wickedly cut eyebrows. “Something more.

This is a test of mettle. That's the Ganseylike part." Gansey knew that Henry was right by the zing of feeling in his heart. It was very similar to the sensation he'd felt at the toga party. That feeling of being known. Not in a superficial way, but in something deeper and truer. He asked, "What is my prize if I pass?" "What is ever any prize of a test of mettle? The prize is your honor, Mr. Gansey." Doubly known. Triply known. Gansey wasn't precisely sure how to cope with being so accurately pegged by a person who was, after all, only a recent acquaintance.

He was a heavy breather. You could hear him puffing and blowing into the mike up there like some large and sweaty animal. I don't like that, never have. My father is like that on the telephone. A lot of heavy breathing in your ear, so you can almost smell the scotch and Pall Malls on his breath. It always seems unsanitary and somehow homosexual.

Richard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness. He was bred for it; nobility and purpose coded in both sides of his pedigree. His mother’s father had been a diplomat, an architect of fortunes; his father’s father had been an architect, a diplomat of styles. His mother’s mother had tutored the children of European princesses. His father’s mother had built a girls’ school with her own inheritance. The Ganseys were courtiers and kings, and when there was no castle to invite them, they built one. He was a king.

So sind die Dinge manchmal. Wenn alles am schlimmsten ist, dann wirft der Verstand alles in einen Papierkorb und geht für eine Weile nach Florida. Da ist ein Was-zur-Hölle-soll's?-Gefühl in einem, während man da-steht und über die Schulter zu der Brücke zurückblickt, die man soeben niedergebrannt hat.

When everything is at its worst, your mind just throws it all into the wastebasket and goes to Florida for a little while. There is a sudden electric what-the-hell glow as you stand there looking back over your shoulder at the bridge you just burnt down.

You don’t own a thing unless you can give it up, what does it profit a man, it profits him nothing, it profits him zilch, and you don’t learn that in school, you learn it on the road, you learn it from Ferd Janklow, and Wolf, and Richard going head-first into the rocks like a Titan II that didn’t fire off right.

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I’d worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.

I thought maybe you'd wish for friends because you don't have any. We'll all be glad to see you die. No one's going to miss you, Gary. Maybe I'll walk behind you and spit on your brains after they blow them all over the road. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe we all will." - Garraty (to Barkovitch), The Long Walk

Some guys - a lot of guys - don't believe what they are seeing, especially if it gets in the way of what they eat or drink or think or believe. Me, I don't believe in God. But if I saw him, I would. I wouldn't just go around saying 'Jesus, that was a great special effect.' The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. And you can quote me.

Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?" At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could. "Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.

Are you at all sorry?" Neil asked. "You took his family away from him." If looks could kill, the one Aaron shot Neil should have flayed the skin from his bones. "That man was not his family." "Technically, he was only a couple signatures away from being Andrew's legal brother. I didn't mean him, anyway. I meant Drake's parents, Cass and Richard Spear," Neil said. "They were going to keep Andrew. Drake was an inconvenience Andrew was willing to live with in exchange." "An inconvenience," Aaron echoed as he surged to his feet. "You fucking—" "And now Drake is dead," Neil said. "Do you think Cass will ever forgive Andrew? It doesn't matter what Drake did to him. She won't be able to look at Andrew without knowing her son is dead because of him." "I don't care." Aaron gave a savage jerk of his hand. "I don't care if Andrew never speaks to me again. I don't care about Cass or Drake or anyone. What Drake did—no. If I could bring him back from the dead and kill him again I would." "Good," Neil said quietly. "So now you understand why Andrew killed your mother.

You've got a shitty habit, you know it? I've noticed it on all those TV drive-safely pitches that you do. You breathe in people's ears. You sound like a stallion in heat, Philbrick. That's a shitty habit. You also sound like you're reading off a teleprompter, even when you're not. You ought to take care of stuff like that. You might save a life.

Scheherazade had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of bygone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, we people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, and he was always human when he talked; but still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich - yes, richer than a king - And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.

(W)hy is poetry wholly an elderly taste? When I was twenty I could not for the life of me read Shakespeare for pleasure; now it lights me as I walk to think I have two acts of King John tonight, and shall next read Richard the Second. It is poetry that I want now -- long poems. I want the concentration and the romance, and the words all glued together, fused, glowing; having no time to waste any more on prose. When I was twenty I liked Eighteenth Century prose; now it's poetry I want, so I repeat like a tipsy sailor in the front of a public house.

For no reason at all, I thought of New Year's Eve, when all those people crowd into Times Square and scream like jackals as the lighted ball slides down the pole, ready to shed its thin party glare on three hundred and sixty-five new days in this best of all possible worlds. I have always wondered what it would be like to be caught in one of those crowds, screaming and not able to hear your own voice, your individuality momentarily wiped out and replaced with the blind empathic overslop of the crowd's lurching, angry anticipation, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with no one in particular.

Sanity: You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that... I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane. ...there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane. ...No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that. ...I'm the sane one.

Sometimes it seems that half of the fairy tales of the world are some form of Cinderella, ugly duckling, or poor boy story, telling of the little person who has no power or possessions who ends up being king or queen, prince or princess. We write it off as wishful dreaming, when it is actually the foundational pattern of disguise or amnesia, loss, and recovery. Every Beauty is sleeping, it seems, before it can meet its Prince. The duckling must be “ugly,” or there will be no story. The knight errant must be wounded, or he will never even know what the Holy Grail is, much less find it. Jesus must be crucified, or there can be no resurrection. It is written in our hardwiring, but can only be heard at the soul level. It will usually be resisted and opposed at the ego level.

All murder'd-for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence; throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a king?

When we die there are two things we can leave behind us: genes and memes. We were built as gene machines, created to pass on our genes. But that aspect of us will be forgotten in three generations. Your child, even your grandchild, may bear a resemblance to you, perhaps in facial features, in a talent for music, in the colour of her hair. But as each generation passes, the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long to reach negligible proportions. Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any one of us is bound to crumble away. Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of William the Conqueror. Yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the old king’s genes. We should not seek immortality in reproduction. But if you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a sparking plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, as G. C. Williams has remarked, but who cares? The memecomplexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong.

An eternity later, they reached what he thought might be the end, and King Henry waved his turkey leg in the air, loudly proclaiming, “This land shall be mine, henceforth and forevermore!” And indeed, it seemed that all was lost for the poor, sweet shepherdess and her strangely changeable flock. But just then, there was a mighty roar— “Is there a lion?” Richard wondered. —and the unicorn burst onto the scene! “Die!” the unicorn shrieked. “Die! Die! Die!” Richard looked to Iris in confusion. The unicorn had not thus demonstrated an ability to speak. Henry’s scream of terror was so chilling, the woman behind Richard murmured, “This is surprisingly well acted.” Richard stole another look at Iris; her mouth was hanging open as Henry leapt over a cow and ran behind the piano, only to trip over the littlest sheep, who was still licking the piano leg. Henry scrambled for purchase, but the (possibly rabid) unicorn was too fast, and it ran headfirst (and head down) toward the frightened king, plunging its horn into his large, pillowed belly. Someone screamed, and Henry went down, feathers flying. “I don’t think this was in the script,” Iris said in a horrified whisper.

Back in Henrietta, night proceeded. Richard Gansey was failing to sleep. When he closed his eyes: Blue’s hands, his voice, black bleeding from a tree. It was starting, starting. No. It was ending. He was ending. This was the landscape of his personal apocalypse. What was excitement when he was wakeful melted into dread when he was tired. He opened his eyes. He opened Ronan’s door just enough to confirm that Ronan was inside, sleeping with his mouth ajar, headphones blaring, Chainsaw a motionless lump in her cage. Then, leaving him, Gansey drove to the school. He used his old key code to get into Aglionby’s indoor athletic complex, and then he stripped and swam in the dark pool in the darker room, all sounds strange and hollow at night. He did endless laps as he used to do when he had first come to the school, back when he had been on the rowing team, back when he had sometimes come earlier than even rowing practice to swim. He had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be in the water: It was as if his body didn’t exist; he was just a borderless mind. He pushed himself off a barely visible wall and headed towards the even less visible opposite one, no longer quite able to hold on to his concrete concerns. School, Headmaster Child, even Glendower. He was only this current minute. Why had he given this up? He couldn’t remember even that. In the dark water he was only Gansey, now. He’d never died, he wasn’t going to die again. He was only Gansey, now, now, only now. He could not see him, but Noah stood on the edge of the pool and watched. He had been a swimmer himself, once.

She took a puff, put the cigarette in the ashtray and stared at it. Without looking up, she said, But do you believe in love, Mr Evans? She rolled the cigarette end around in the ash tray. Do you? Outside, he thought, beyond this mountain and its snow, there was a world of countless millions of people. He could see them in their cities, in the heat and the light. And he could see this house, so remote and isolated, so far away, and he had a feeling that it once must have seemed to her and Jack, if only for a short time, like the universe with the two of them at its centre. And for a moment he was at the King of Cornwall with Amy in the room they thought of as theirs—with the sea and the sun and the shadows, with the white paint flaking off the French doors and with their rusty lock, with the breezes late of an afternoon and of a night the sound of the waves breaking—and he remembered how that too had once seemed the centre of the universe. I don’t, she said. No, I don’t. It’s too small a word, don’t you think, Mr Evans? I have a friend in Fern Tree who teaches piano. Very musical, she is. I’m tone-deaf myself. But one day she was telling me how every room has a note. You just have to find it. She started warbling away, up and down. And suddenly one note came back to us, just bounced back off the walls and rose from the floor and filled the place with this perfect hum. This beautiful sound. Like you’ve thrown a plum and an orchard comes back at you. You wouldn’t believe it, Mr Evans. These two completely different things, a note and a room, finding each other. It sounded … right. Am I being ridiculous? Do you think that’s what we mean by love, Mr Evans? The note that comes back to you? That finds you even when you don’t want to be found? That one day you find someone, and everything they are comes back to you in a strange way that hums? That fits. That’s beautiful. I’m not explaining myself at all well, am I? she said. I’m not very good with words. But that’s what we were. Jack and me. We didn’t really know each other. I’m not sure if I liked everything about him. I suppose some things about me annoyed him. But I was that room and he was that note and now he’s gone. And everything is silent.