Royce Quotes

Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him..

Some women need no jewels to make them sparkle. You are one of them. -Royce Westmoreland

See, that’s the difference,” Mauvin said. “I suffer a loss and people console me. Royce suffers a loss and whole towns evacuate.

You are mad!" she snapped, her chest heaving. "And you are a devil!" "And you, my dear," Royce imperturbably replied, "are a bitch." With that, he turned to the horrified friar and unhesitatingly announced, "The lady and I wish to be wed.

Why is it when you yield, I feel like the one who has been conquered?" -Royce Westmoreland

It was a trap after all,” Alric said. He turned to Royce. “My apologies for doubting your sound paranoia.

Kind? How boring that would be. I aspire to be wicked.

Tell me, have you ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?" -Kingsley

Behold your new mistress, my wife," he pronounced, "and know that when she bids you, I have bidden you. What service you render her, you are rendering me. What loyalty you give or withhold from her, you give or withhold from me!" -Royce Westmoreland

As they climbed into their saddles, Myron bowed his head and muttered a soft prayer. “There,” Hadrian told Royce, “we’ve got Maribor on our side. Now you can relax.” “Actually,” Myron said sheepishly, “I was praying for the horses. But I will pray for you as well,” he added hastily.

His cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin.

When his rolls royce was mobbed by fans the chauffeur said: ''do you want me to get them off the car?'' and Lennon replied: ''No - they paid for it, they can wreck it

Alric looked up at the thief with a scowl. “I just want to say for the record that as far as royal protectors go, you’re not very good.” “It’s my first day,” Royce replied dryly. “And already I’m trapped in a timeless prison. I shudder to think what might have happened if you had a whole week.

Come for your revenge at last, elf?" Royce stepped forward. He looked down at Thranic and then around the room. "How could I top possibly top this? Sealed alive in a tomb of rock. My only regret is that I had nothing to do with it

Wall Street is the only place that people drive to in a Rolls Royce to take advice from people who ride the subway.

Royce nodded. “Invest in crossbows. Next time stay hidden and just put a couple bolts into each of your target’s chests. All this talking is just stupid.” “Royce!” Hadrian admonished. “What? You’re always saying I should be nicer to people. I’m trying to be helpful.

And I wish to thank you as well, Royce." He was puzzled. "For what?" "For reminding me that anyone, no matter what they've done, can find redemption if they seek it.

So,” Royce said, “you want us to escape from this prison, kidnap the king, cross the countryside with him in tow while dodging soldiers who I assume might not accept our side of the story, and go to another secret prison so that he can visit an inmate?” Arista did not appear amused. “Either that, or you can be tortured to death in four hours.” “Sounds like a really good plan to me,” Hadrian declared.“Royce?” “I like any plan where I don’t die a horrible death.

Stealing swords,” Royce muttered mostly to himself. “Okay, let’s take a look at this tower. The sooner I see it, the sooner I can start cursing.

Royce looked back down at the stream below. "She doesn't even know me. What if she doesn't like me? Few people do." "She might not at first. Maribor knows I didn't. But you have a way of growing on a person." He smiled. "You know, like lichen or mold.

You're not going to charge us for the tower, I hope," Hadrian said. "But if you are, it was Royce's fault and should come out of his share.

You didn’t really hold back on Braga so Pickering could kill him, did you?” Royce asked after the two were left alone in the hallway. “Of course not. I held off because it’s death for a commoner to kill a noble.” “That’s what I thought.” Royce sounded relieved. “For a minute, I wondered if you’d gone from jumping on the good-deed wagon to leading the whole wagon train.

What’s going on?” Royce asked as throngs of people suddenly moved toward him from the field and the castle interior. “I mentioned that you saw the thing and now they want to know what it looks like,” Hadrian explained. “What did you think? They were coming to lynch you?” He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy.” “Half empty?” Hadrian chuckled. “Was there ever any drink in that glass?

If this keeps up, we’re going to own Melengar,” Hadrian mentioned. “What’s this we stuff?” Royce asked. “You’re retired, remember?” “Oh? So you’ll be leading the Nationalist advance, will you?” “Sixty-forty?” Royce proposed.

You think he’s still alive?” Royce asked, nodding his head toward Alric. “Sure,” Hadrian replied without bothering to look. “He’s probably sleeping. Why do you ask?” “I was just pondering something. Do you think a person could smother in a wet potato bag?” Hadrian lifted his head and looked over at the motionless prince. “I really hadn’t thought about it until now.

But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them.

What were you thinking about just now while you were looking out the window?" To his surprise, the question flustered her. "I—wasn't thinking." "Then what were you doing?" he asked, his curiosity aroused. A rueful smile touched her inviting lips, and she shot him a sideways look before turning back to the window. "I was… talking to God," she admitted. "'Tis a habit I have." Startled and slightly amused, Royce said, "Really? What did God have to say?" "I think," she softly replied, "He said, 'You're welcome.' " "For what?" Royce teased. Lifting her eyes to his, Jenny solemnly replied, "For you.

I need your help.” Royce looked up as if his head weighed a hundred pounds, his eyes red, his face ashen. He waited. “One last job,” Hadrian told him, then added, “I promise.” “Is it dangerous?” “Very.” “Is there a good chance I’ll get killed?” “Odds are definitely in favor of that.” Royce nodded, looked down at the scarf in his lap, and replied, “Okay.

Royce Westmoreland stared at him with biting scorn. "I despise hypocrisy, particularly when it is coated with holiness." "May I ask for a specific example?" "Fat priests," Royce replied, "with fat purses, who lecture staving peasants on the dangers of gluttony and the merits of poverty.

Me: I think we should have sex again. Royce: Bad idea. Me: Why? Royce: I want more from you than sex. Me: Goodbye, you prudish bastard.

Royce's eyes narrowed in discouragement at the thoght of having to sing to jenny. his deep bariton voice would surely bring every hound for miles to yap and nip at his heels.

You can’t kill Myron, Royce,” Hadrian said, rapidly pulling the monk away as if he had found a child playing with a wild bear. “It would be like killing a puppy.

Have you ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?” Kingsley asked, trying not to rip Søren’s shirt in his rush to unbutton it. He needed Søren’s skin on his skin right now. “No,” Søren said. “But ask me that question again in an hour.

I just want to say, for the record, as far as Royal protectors go, you're not very good." "It's my first day," Royce replied dryly. "And already I am trapped in a timeless prison. I shudder to think what might have happened if you had a whole week.

Bah!” Magnus scoffed. “Humans always blame dwarves. A baby goes missing and it was a dwarf that stole it. A princess runs off with a second son of a king and it was a dwarf who lured her to a deep prison. And when they find her with the prince—lo, she was rescued! “A king is stabbed in the back in his own chapel, and a princess’s tower is turned into a death trap,” Royce called back to them. “Friends are betrayed and trapped in a prison—yes, I can see your surprise. Where do they get such ideas?” “Damn his elven ears,” Magnus said.

The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don’t, mortality is only a horror. But if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, “solves the paradox of our ordinary existence by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves the will which delights to do this service, and which is not thwarted but enriched and expressed in such service.” In more recent times, psychologists have used the term “transcendence” for a version of this idea. Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential.

He moved so our noses touched. "I'm a human who can become a wolf. Smell is really important to me, and you, Rachel Clancy, smell like mine.

Take care of your car in the garage, and the car will take care of you on the road.

Their jobs were almost too clean for Royce's taste.

The claw slipped again. It came off the edge of the stone and Hadrian felt his stomach rise as he fell. He dropped less than two stories and landed in a thick pile of straw, but it still hurt. With the wind knocked from him, he lay staring up at the sky and the wall. Royce’s shadow crossed his face. “That was pathetic.” “You’re enjoying this a little too much for me to think you’re honestly trying to help.” “Trust me. I want you to improve. I want you to fall from much higher up.

How strange, Royce thought, that, after emerging victorious from more than a hundred real battles, the greatest moment of triumph he had ever known had come to him on a mock battlefield where he'd stood alone, unhorsed, and defeated. This morning, his life had seemed as bleak as death. Tonight, he held joy in his arms. Someone or something—fate or fortune or Jenny's God—had looked down upon him this morning and seen his anguish. And, for some reason, Jenny had been given back to him. Closing his eyes, Royce brushed a kiss against her smooth forehead. Thank you, he thought. And in his heart, he could have sworn he heard a voice answer, You're welcome.

Royce hated keeping secrets from Hadrian, and it weighed heavily on his conscience, which was amazing, because he had never known he had one. Royce defined right and wrong by the moment. Right was what was best for him—wrong was everything else.

Royce turned to Hadrian. “It’s supposed to make them look tough, but all it really does is make it easy to identify them as thieves for the rest of their lives. Painting a red hand on everyone is pretty stupid when you think about it.” “That tattoo is supposed to be a hand?” Hadrian asked. “I thought it was a little red chicken. But now that you mention it, a hand does make more sense.” Royce looked back at Will and tilted his head to one side. “Does kinda look like a chicken.

Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.

Any chance he’s turned a new leaf and taken up sailing for real?” “About as likely as me doing it.” Hadrian eyed Royce for a heartbeat. “I put him at the top of the list.

You always think everything is so easy," Royce replied, wiping his eyes. "I'm just a glass-half-full kinda guy. How's your glass looking these days?" "I have no idea. I'm still trying to get over the sheer size of it.

If you’re dating a writer and they don’t write about you — whether it’s good or bad — then they don’t love you. They just don’t. Writers fall in love with the people we find inspiring.

Royce understood then why she had come: she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: "Darling," he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, "don't do this…" But his wife wouldn't listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs. By the time she finally arose, there could not have been many among the spectators who had not seen what she had done. Standing up, she stepped back, lifted her tear-streaked face to his, and squared her shoulders. Pride exploded in Royce's battered being—because, somehow, she was managing to stand as proudly—as defiantly—as if she had just been knighted by a king.

Been meddling, have you?” Royce asked, looking around at the hive of activity. “You must admit they didn’t have much in the way of a defense plan,” Hadrian said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Royce smiled at him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?

You can go back to blacksmithing in Hintindar and live a quiet happy life. Do me a favor and marry some pretty farm girl and train your son to beat the crap out of imperial knights." "Sure," Hadrian told him. "And with any luck he'll make friends with a cynical burglar who'll do nothing but torment him.

You’re too visible, Albert,” Hadrian explained. “Can’t afford to have our favorite noble hauled to some dungeon where they cut off your eyelids or pull off your fingernails until you tell them what we’re up to.” “But if they torture me, and I don’t know the plan, how will I save myself?” “I’m sure they’ll believe you after the fourth nail or so,” Royce said with a wicked grin.

You broke into Drumindor?" Wyatt looked impressed. "I thought that was impossible." "Just about," Royce answered, "and we didn't get paid enough for the trouble it gave me." Hadrian snorted, "You? I was the one who nearly died making that leap. You just hung there and laughed.

Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.

Hadrian leapt to his feet. Royce was already up. “Don’t bother,” Esrahaddon told them. “She’s dead, and there’s nothing you can do. The monster cannot be harmed by your weapons. It—” The two were out the door.

Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the world." "By the way," Royce mentioned, "No one uses the words 'tis or hath anymore and certainly not thou, thy, or verily.

And why would she do that?” Hadrian shouted to the upper story. “She told you herself. Farlan was going to have the sheriff investigate.” “Yeah, investigate you!” “But I didn’t kill anyone. Well, not anyone in Vernes … well, not recently.

Jennifer," he said, his voice sharp with dawning alarm, "where are you going?" A moment later, Aunt Elinor looked down from the gallery above and cheerfully replied, "She is going to have your baby, your grace." The serfs in the hall turned to exchange smiling glances, and one of them dashed off to spread the news to the scullions in the kitchen. "Do not," Aunt Elinor warned in direst tones when Royce started up the stairs, "come up here. I am not inexperienced in these matters, and you will only be in the way. And do not worry," she added breezily, noting Royce's draining color. "The fact that Jenny's mother died in childbirth is nothing to be concerned about." Royce's tankard crashed to the stone floor.

The amusement fled from Royce's face and with a groan he pulled her roughly against his chest, crushing her to him. "Jenny," he whispered hoarsely, burying his face in her fragrant hair. "Jenny, I love you." She melted against him, molding her body to the rigid contours of his, offering her lips up for his fierce, devouring kiss, then she took his face between both her hands. Leaning back slightly against his arm, her melting blue eyes gazing deeply into his, his wife replied in a shaky voice, "I think, my lord, I love you more.

If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.

There’s no debt. There never has been. We are friends.

And, because you are so enamored with our captain,” he held out his hand and grabbed hers, breaking her out of the trance. “I’m Royce, resident bad ass, all around swell motherfucker, and every woman's dream come true. Very nice to meet you.

You are not my wife yet, to concern yourself in my affairs." "And when I am your wife?" His conscience pricked him, making him snap, "You will learn not to question me." -Royce to Corliss-

Wait a minute,” Hadrian said. “Was it a beat-up brown leather notebook? About this big?” He gestured with his hands. “Yes,” the Patriarch said. Arista looked back and forth between them. “How do you know that?” “I know it because I have lived in the Crown Tower,” the Patriarch said. “And you?” Arista looked at Hadrian, who hesitated. “Ha-ha! Of course, of course. I knew it!” Cosmos DeLur chuckled and clapped his hands together in single applause while smiling at Hadrian. “Such a wonderfully delightful rumor as that had to be true. That is an exquisite accomplishment.” “You stole it?” Arista asked. “Yes, he did,” the Patriarch declared. “Actually,” Hadrian said, “Royce and I did, but we put it back the next night.

How's your foot?” Hadrian asked. “It hurts.” “He had a good hold.” “Bit right through my boot.” “Yeah, that looked painful.” “So why exactly didn't you help?” Hadrian shrugged. “It was a dog, Royce. A cute, little dog. What did you want me to do, kill an innocent little animal?” Royce tilted his head, squinting into the light of the late evening sun to focus on his friend. “Is that a joke?” “It was a puppy.” “It was not a puppy, and it was eating my foot.” “Yeah, but you were invading his home.” .... “You know, you didn't have to throw it out the window,” Hadrian said as they walked. Royce, who was still preoccupied with his foot, looked up. “What did you want me to do with it? Scratch behind the little monster’s ears as it gnawed my toes off? What if it started barking? That would have been a fine mess.” “It's a good thing there was a moat right under the window.” Royce stopped. “There was?

There you are!” he shouted at them. “Father has half the castle turned out looking for you.” “Us?” Hadrian asked. “Yes.” Fanen nodded. “He wants to see the two thieves in his chambers right away.” “You didn’t steal the silver or anything, did you, Royce?” Hadrian asked. “I would bet it has more to do with your flirting with Lenare this afternoon and threatening Mauvin just to show off,” Royce retorted. “That was your fault,” Hadrian said, jabbing his finger at him.

Unless you can find some sort of loyalty, you cannot find unity and peace in your active living.

Another last-minute, good-deed job,” Royce grumbled as he stuffed supplies into his saddlebag. “True,” Hadrian said, slinging his sword belt over his shoulder, “but this is at least a paying job.” “You should have told him the real reason we saved him from Trumbul— because we wouldn’t see the hundred tenents otherwise.” “That was your reason. Besides, how often do we get to do royal contracts? If word gets around, we’ll be able to command top salaries.” “If word gets around, we’ll be hanged.

It’s not that we don’t trust you,” Royce said as Hadrian prepared the bow. “It’s just that we’ve learned over the years that honor among nobles is usually inversely proportionate to their rank. As a result, we prefer to rely on more concrete methods for motivations—such as self-preservation. You already know we don’t want you dead, but if you have ever been riding full tilt and had a horse buckle under you, you understand that death is always a possibility, and broken bones are almost a certainty.” “There’s also the danger of missing the horse completely,” Hadrian added. “I’m a good shot, but even the best archers have bad days. So to answer your question—yes, you can control your own horse.

I would set his Rolls-Royce on fire if I had the chance and sleep just fine.

Royce took out his dagger and drove it into the table, where it stood upright. “Look at the blade. Is it bright or dark?” Hadrian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The brilliant surface of Alverstone was dazzling as it reflected the candlelight. “Bright.” Royce nodded. “Now move your head over here and look from my perspective.” Hadrian leaned over, putting his head on the opposite side of the blade, where the shadow made it black as chimney soot. “It’s the same dagger,” Royce explained, “but from where you sat it was light while I saw it as dark. So who is right?” “Neither of us,” Hadrian said. “No,” Royce said. “That’s the mistake people always make, and they make it because they can’t grasp the truth.” “Which is?” “That we’re both right. One truth doesn’t refute another. Truth doesn’t lie in the object, but in how we see it.

Wake up, buddy,” Royce whispered, nudging him. Hadrian was damp with sweat. “About time you got here. I was starting to think you ran off and left me.” “I considered it, but the thought of Magnus as my best man kinda forced the issue. Nice haircut, by the way. It looks good on you—very knightly.

It wasn’t necessary. Wilmer offered his piece of the map in exchange for a fair share. His only condition was to come along.” “And Maribor’s beard, was that ever a mistake,” Wilmer said. “Might have been better if you had killed me.” He looked at the thief. “Would have been quick and painless, right?” Royce shrugged. “Sure, why not.

Dear Maribor, you’re heavy,” Hadrian growled as he untied the rope. “No, I’m not. You’re wounded.” Royce moved his hand and felt the blood-soaked clothes. “God, we’re bleeding like a slit throat.” “You’re bleeding more than me,” Hadrian said. “Oh, does that make you feel better?” “Actually it does.

Royce cast a harsh and anxious look at the prince. “What?” Alric asked. “I thought we discussed the importance of keeping a low profile.” “Oh, please.” The prince waved a hand at the thief. “I don’t think it will get me killed if this monk knows I’m the king. Look at him. I’ve seen drowned rats more formidable.

Sir Eustace was with Royce and Stefan looking over some maps when he was informed by the guard that the ladies were asking for him. "Is there no end to her arrogance!" Royce bit out, referring to Jenny. "She even sends her guards on errands, and what's more, they run to do her bidding." Checking his tirade, he said shortly, "I assume it was the blue-eyed one with the dirty face who sent you?" Sir Lionel chuckled and shook his head. "I saw two clean faces, Royce, but the one who talked to me had greenish eyes, not blue." "Ah, I see," Royce said sarcastically, "it wasn't Arrogance that sent you trotting away from your post, it was Beauty. What does she want?

And in that unlikely moment, as she held his dagger poised high, ready to strike, Royce Westmoreland thought she was the most magnificent creature he'd ever beheld; a wild, beautiful, enraged angel of retribution, her chest rising and falling with fury as she courageously confronted an enemy who towered over her.

Very slowly Royce pushed the door inward, peering through the gap. He looked left and right, then closed it once more and replaced the bolts. "What is it?" Hadrian asked. "He's right," Royce said dismally. "No one is getting through." Thranic smiled and nodded until he was beset by another series of coughs that bent him over in pain. "What is it?" Hadrian repeated. "You're not going to believe it." "What?" "There's a -- a thingy." "A what?" "You know, a thingy thing." Hadrian looked at him, puzzled. "A Gilarabrywn," Thranic said.

If anyone had asked Royce Melborn what he hated most at that moment, he would’ve said dogs. Dogs and dwarves topped his list, both equally despised for having so much in common—each was short, vicious, and inexcusably hairy.

Royce is a survivor. You’ve never seen the beast, and he’s lived his whole life in its stomach, yet managed not to be digested.

If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls Royce would today cost $100 and get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside. —Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld magazine

There were times Hadrian wondered if Royce was actually a cat that some mischievous witch had turned into a man and then lost track of. The similarities were too numerous to be coincidental. An irritatingly-superior aloof nature, fastidiousness, a habit of roaming at night, and his general propensity for solitude were all evidence.

I am emotional about engines, if you hurt my car, you hurt my heart.

It would have hurt no matter who took you the first time.

We've talked about this before, Royce," Arcadius yelled at him. "You aren't to hurt the students." "You said don't kill," Royce replied. "If you don't want misunderstandings, then be specific. The little baron boy will live. Trust me, I know where to stick a knife.

Philosophers have actually devoted themselves, in the main, neither to perceiving the world, nor to spinning webs of conceptual theory, but to interpreting the meaning of the civilization which they have represented.

The amount of improvement that has occurred in computer technology in the past half century is truly staggering and unprecedented in other industries. ... If cars had improved at this rate in the same time period, a Rolls Royce would now cost 10 dollars and get a billion miles per gallon. (Unfortunately, it would probably also have a 200-page manual telling how to open the door.)

I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I always knew I could get by. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn’t “have to worry about money. I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money ruin my life.

Hadrian took the opportunity to move over and join Royce, who sat with his back to the hearth and his sight on the windows. “I’d say you’re being awfully quiet, but then I might as well follow with ‘Oh look, you’re breathing.

Major thinkers in this century from a wide range of traditions in philosophy are scarcely comprehensible without understanding their relation to Hegel. This is true of Sartre, Heidegger, Merleau Ponty, Kojève (whose thought has been reworked by Francis Fukuyama in his writing on the ‘end of history’), Derrida, Lacan, Rorty, Royce, Althusser, Charles Taylor, Adorno, Marcuse, Fromm, and many others.

You alive?” Hadrian asked. “If I were dead, I don’t think there’d be geese.” Royce tilted his head up to catch the arrow of birds heading south. “But maybe they’re evil geese.” “Evil geese?” “We have no idea what goes on in the water fowl world. They might have been a gang that stole eggs or something.” “I’m guessing you have a fever.

The guy’s operation was locked up tighter than a Royce Gracie shoulder hold. This little situation was the Golden Goose taking a big fat dump right in their laps.

Royce made to protest, but Hadrian held up his hand. “Relax. I’ll deal with Count Nightshirt.” “Viscount.” “What’s the difference?” “A whole lot of money.

Mouse?” Royce muttered. “I just can’t seem to get rid of this horse, can I?

I know a lot of wealthy people, and yet not many of them drive a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari! However, I also know some of poor people on the verge of bankruptcy driving Bentleys!

You ready?” Royce asked. “For what?” “Turn around. Let’s go back-to-back and link arms.

Don’t worry about him, the girl said. He’s rich. He has 3,859 Rolls Royces.

Royce had the hearing of a bat. He could practically listen in on what was happening tomorrow.

If my Rolls-Royce splashes you with mud as you’re waiting for a bus, you’ll know that I’ve taken to crime.

Shall we, partner?” “See you on the other side, pal.” Hadrian threw his arms around the thief and, surprisingly, felt Royce hug him back. With one final smile, Royce pushed open the door and disappeared into the darkness of the Vault of Days.

Why is it,” Royce murmured, gazing into her intoxicating eyes, “that every time you surrender willingly, like this, you make me feel like a king who has conquered. Yet when I conquer you against your will, you make me feel like a defeated beggar?

Paul: 'After recording sessions, at two or three in the morning, we'd be careering through the villages on the way to Weybridge, shouting 'weyhey' and driving much too fast. George would perhaps be in his Ferrari - he was quite a fast driver - and John and I would be following in his big Rolls Royce or the Princess. John had a mike in the Rolls with a loudspeaker outside and he'd be shouting to George in the front: 'It is foolish to resist, it is foolish to resist! Pull over!' It was insane. All the lights would go on in the houses as we went past - it must have freaked everybody out. When John went to make 'How I Won the War' in Spain, he took the same car, which he virtually lived in. It had blacked-out windows and you could never see who was in it, so it was perfect. John didn't come out of it - he just used to talk to the people outside through the microphone: 'Get away from the car! Get away!

Royce saw to his horse’s needs; then, finding a suitable place, he unrolled his blanket and lay down. “I take it we’re camping here, then?” Royce said nothing, still refusing to acknowledge his existence. “You could have said, ‘We’re going to bed down here for the rest of the night.’ No, wait, you’re right, too much. How about ‘sleeping here’? Two words. Even you could manage that, right? I mean, I know you can talk. You had plenty to say back in Arcadius’s office. Couldn’t keep the words from coming out then, but no, utterly impossible to indicate in any way that we’ll be stopping here for the night.” Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. “How long were we on the road?” He paused to look up at the moon. “What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don’t you think, Hadrian? Moon looks like a fingernail, ain’t that right, Hadrian? That tree looks like a goddamn bear, don’t it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and that ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon.” Royce shifted to his side, hood up. “Yeah, well … thank Maribor and Novron I didn’t need your help that time.” “Didn’t care for my help too much in the stable,” Royce said. “It speaks!

Same reason you're trying to sell your nightshirt," Royce replied. "For rum?" "Rum?" Hadrian said. "Not food?" Albert shrugged. "That's what I do with all my money. It helps take my mind off the fact that I spent all my money on rum.

Royce traveled wrapped in his cloak with the weight of the rain collapsing the hood around his head—not a good sign for Thranic and Bernie. Until then, Royce had played the part of the good little sailor, but with the reemergence of the hood, and the loss of his white kerchief, Hadrian knew that role had ended. They had not spoken much since the attack. Not surprisingly, Royce was in no mood for idle discussion. Hadrian guessed that by now his friend had imagined killing Thranic a dozen times, with a few Bernies thrown in here and there for variety. Hadrian had seen Royce wounded before and was familiar with the cocooning—only what would emerge from that cloak and hood would not be a butterfly.

Hadrian gestured toward the sentinel. “So, what’s going on between you and Thranic, anyway? He appears to really hate you—even more than most people.” Royce did not look in his direction. He sat nonchalantly, pretending to ignore the world, as if they were the only two aboard. “Funny thing, that. I never met him, never heard of him until this voyage, and yet I know him rather well, and he knows me.” “Thank you, Mr. Esrahaddon. Can you provide me with perhaps a more cryptic answer?” Royce smiled. “I see why he does it now. It’s rather fun.

The gods don’t give a gift that precious to someone so undeserving.” “Are you my priest now?” Hadrian stared at him. Royce looked back down at the stream below. “She doesn’t even know me. What if she doesn’t like me? Few people do.” “She might not at first. Maribor knows I didn’t. But you have a way of growing on a person.” He smiled. “You know, like lichen or mold.” Royce looked up and scowled. “Okay, forget what I said. Definitely steer clear of the priesthood.

Royce stared at him a second. “What?” “You heard me-you hear every stupid thing anyone ever says. That’s the most annoying thing about you. Well, not the most -it’s actually really hard to order them. The list is so ridiculously long.

Royce smiled. “See, you can always count on people doing what is best for themselves.” “Like I did?” Hadrian said. The smile left Royce’s lips. “You’re a freak of nature or the world’s greatest fool. I’m still trying to figure that out.

Usually to make something truly great, you need to start from scratch, Royce remembered him saying. You need to break everything down, strip away the impurities, and it takes great heat to do that, but once you do, then the building can start. The result can seem miraculous, but the process—the process is always a bitch.

Don’t let go. Don’t you dare let go. Do you hear me? Are you listening to me, Royce Melborn? You have to hang on, Royce. Please… give me your hand. Give me your hand!” Royce’s head snapped up. He focused on Hadrian and there was a curious look in his eyes. “What—what did you say?” “I said I can’t reach you. I need your help.

Speech has, indeed, its origin in social conformity.

Royce’s tone shifted between amazed and angry but finally settled on a nice restrained tempest.

Well gentlemen,” Royce said as he started for the door.  “And lady.  Welcome to Los Angeles.  This is our Sanctuary in the middle of hell on Earth.

It’s a Cadillac all right.” “The Rolls-Royce of automobiles,” Ottum

Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble. (Quidvis recte factum quamvis humile praeclarum.) —SIR HENRY ROYCE

We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.” “Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile.

Reason, truth, innocence" --Royce sat back against the wall and folded his arms--"unicorns, pixies, and dragons; you're not that young to believe in such things. How is it that you fancy yourself a resident of a make-believe world." "I told you. At this point, it's a choice." "It's not. It's fooling yourself. I can decide between eating fish or pork, but I can only pretend to eat unicorn meat. I can't actually eat a unicorn. The world is the world, and you live in it with open eyes or choose to be blind. It's all the same to me, but don't stand there pretending your right.

What is it?” Hadrian asked. “Fighting,” he replied at last. “Fighting? Who?” Hadrian asked. “I can’t hear the color of their uniforms.” Royce smirked. “Soldiers, though. I hear swords on armor.

Osho made over 600 books with his shared knowledge, had over 300,000 books in his personal library. But the world only knows of his one book he wrote about sex and his 99 Rolce-Royce car collections.

Did you save any?" Royce asked. "Any what?" "Of those eggs. If you did, we could cook them for breakfast in the morning." Hadrian lay silent for a moment confused; then it hit him and he almost laughed.

Why does this always happen?” Royce asked. “Why are we always hanging on a wall, waiting to die by slow vivisection? I just want to point out that this was your idea—again.” “I’ve been waiting for that. But I believe I told you not to come.” Hadrian shifted in his chains and sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s much chance of a beautiful princess coming in here and saving us again.” “That card’s been dealt.

Then Royce's parry came a beat too late. The pale sword bit through the ringmail beneath his arm. The young Lord cried out in pain. Blood welled between the rings. It seemed red as fire where they touched the snow.

Hadrian was not convinced but knew there was no reason to argue further. Gwen was not the type for debate. Most women he knew invited discussion and even enjoyed arguments, but not Gwen. There was clarity to her thinking that let you know she had already made her own journey to the inevitable conclusion and was just politely waiting there for you to join her. In her own way, she was much like Royce—except for the polite waiting.

You were right about the swords,” Royce said. “You really do need three.” “You sound drunk.” “I feel drunk-and I hate being drunk. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. And it makes me act stupid … like you.” “You’re aware I’m in the process of trying to save your life, right?” “What part of stupid don’t you understand?

JOSHUA ROYCE AND CALEB SMITH Cordially invite you to join them as they exchange vows in a celebration of marriage 02.14.15 4 o’clock in the afternoon Ralph’s Tavern 2900 South Boulevard Hintenville, MA Reception to follow

You know, sometimes I don't understand what's wrong with us. This is just about the most creative and imaginative country on earth—and yet sometimes we just don't seem to have the gumption to exploit our intellectual property. We split the atom, and now we have to get French or Korean scientists to help us build nuclear power stations. We perfected the finest cars on earth—and now Rolls-Royce is in the hands of the Germans. Whatever we invent, from the jet engine to the internet, we find that someone else carts it off and makes a killing from it elsewhere.

Simply, this is what she believed: she believed that the universe showed each of us certain things, that it made certain things open. Many people lived a peace life with nothing ever happening to them. But into some families other things fell. Some families were afflicted with random tragedies - car accidents, plane accidents, hang gliding accidents, bus crashes, knifing, drownings, scarves getting caught under the wheels of their Rolls Royces, breaking their necks.

Your story should open as a door to the reader, where the action has already begun and they have to run to keep up.

Asking someone else to drive your sports car is like asking someone else to kiss your girlfriend.

That was the day I knew. It was as if Rolls met Royce, Black met Decker, Oliver met Stan, TinTin met Snowy, Marks met Spencer... he was to me what Patracolus was to Achilles, Hylas to Hercules, Enkidoe to Gilgamesh, Jonathan to David, Bosie to Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud to Verlaine. He was my Billy Budd, all the holy multitude of Thebes, Jasjoe mixed with Tadzio...

She was no stranger to the game of flirtation. During her time in Paris, many men had attempted to woo her with sweet words and kisses. But this was different. Mr. Royce was no courtly French gentleman. His touch wasn’t sweet. It was incendiary.

Do you think the Gilarabrywn knows we’re still in here?” “Esrahaddon said it was intelligent, so I presume it can count.” “Then it will come back and find us. We have to reach the castle. The distance across the open is about—what? Two hundred feet?” “About that,” Royce confirmed. “I guess we can hope it’s still munching on Millie. Ready?” “Run spread out so it can’t get both of us. Go.” The grass was slick with dew and filled with stumps and pits. Hadrian got only a dozen yards before falling on his face. “Stay behind me,” Royce told him. “I thought we were spreading out?” “That’s before I remembered you’re blind.

We’re not in trouble,” Hadrian said. “The truth is, we’ve done nothing wrong.” Royce closed his eyes and shook his head. “By Mar, the way you think. It’s . . . it’s . . . I honestly don’t know if there’s a word for it. You realize the truth is rarely important, right?

You ever seen him care for anyone, Cap?” I ask him but keep my eyes on Royce who’s laughing on the phone in the driveway. “Nobody but her. He liked having someone to talk to outside us. He felt comfortable being himself with her.” I nod. “Pretty fucking sure she was the center of his world.

There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the FOLLIES. The party has begun.

I notice you didn’t include a blade with your new attire,” Royce said. “Not even a little jeweled dagger.” “Lords no.” Albert looked appalled. “I don’t fight.” “I thought all nobles learned sword fighting.” Royce looked to Hadrian. “I thought so too.” “Nobles with competent fathers perhaps. I spent my formative years at my aunt’s at Huffington Manor. She held a daily salon, where a dozen noble ladies came to discuss all manner of philosophical topics, like how much they hated their husbands. I’ve never actually held a sword, but I can tie a mean corset and apply face paint like a gold-coin whore.

Royce eyed Hadrian with a skeptical expression. “He’ll never manage the climb.” “Climb?” Hadrian asked. “The treasure room is at the top of the Crown Tower,” Arcadius explained. Even Hadrian had heard of that. Even farmers in Hintindar knew of the Crown Tower. Supposedly it was the leftover corner of some ancient but legendary castle. “I’m in good shape. A few stairs aren’t going to kill me.” “The tower is heavily guarded in every way, except against a person climbing up the outside,” Royce replied, his eyes fixed on the long fang he continued to twirl. “Isn’t that because … well, I’ve heard it’s sort of tall.” “The tallest surviving structure built by man,” Arcadius said. “Should I bring a lunch?” “Considering we’ll begin after dusk and climb all night, I’d suggest a late dinner,” Royce replied. “I was joking.” “I wasn’t. But I only ask one thing.” “What’s that?” “When you fall to your death, do so quietly.

You don’t move like a human,” Irawondona said. “And you fight surprisingly well for a talking brideeth.” The reaction on Irawondona’s face was immediate. His happy grin vanished. Arista looked to Myron. “I don’t know that word,” the monk replied. “I wouldn’t think you would,” Royce said. “I taught him that one.

When I was stuck in Colnora during the siege, your old friends helped get me out.” “The Diamond?” Hadrian nodded. “Price arranged for me to slip away one night in exchange for delivering the letter. He preferred risking my neck rather than one of his boys.” “What did it say? Who was it from?” Hadrian shrugged. “How would I know?” “You didn’t read it?” Royce asked incredulously. “No, it was for Alric.” “Do you still have it?” Hadrian shook his head. “Delivered it to the castle on the way in.” Royce dropped his face into his hands. “Sometimes, I just …” Royce shook his head. “Unbelievable.” “What’s wrong?” Gwen asked as she joined them. “Hadrian’s an idiot,” Royce replied, his voice muffled by his hands. “I’m sure that’s not true.” “Thank you, Gwen. See? At least she appreciates me.

Royce reached out and deliberately knocked Hadrian’s mug over, spilling the ale across the end of the table and onto the floor. Hadrian pushed away from the table and looked at Royce, surprised. “What’d you do that for?” “You didn’t get wet, did you?” He had a bemused look on his face. “No.” Royce watched the ale drip off the end of the table for a moment. “That’s because I knew where the ale would go. Besides, I need you sober, because if this fails, we might have to kill a lot of people.

What was that all about?” Royce asked. Hadrian shrugged, but Royce looked unconvinced. “You were here for what—five years? Anything happen? Anything you want to share?” “Sure,” he replied with a sarcastic grin. “Right after you fill me in on how you escaped from Manzant Prison and why you never killed Ambrose Moor.” “Sorry I asked.

But what stupendous good fortune! What an answer to prayer. A guest house, and a charming hostess. My Rolls Royce, alas, has run into a snowdrift. blinding snow everywhere. I do not know where I am. Perhaps, I think to myself, I shall freeze to death. And then I take a little bag, I stagger through the snow, I see before me big iron gates. A habitation! I am saved. Twice I fall into the snow as I come up your drive, but at last I arrive and immediately - despair turns to joy. You can let me have a room - yes?

Royce decided to try to reason with Hadrian. “Would you rather they find out and send a detachment to hunt us down?” “No, I just hate being the cause of an innocent man’s death.” “No one is innocent, my friend. And you aren’t the cause … You’re more like”—he searched for words—“the grease beneath the skids.” “Thanks. I feel so much better.

A white night for me is as rare as a fat postman. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Howard Spencer at the Ritz-Beverly I would have killed a bottle and knocked myself out. And the next time I saw a polite character drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, I would depart rapidly in several directions. There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.

Among all the machines, motorcar is my favorite machine.

I lived in a place where the weather holds a grudge against humans. Winter in Chicago is winter defined (..)

The first step to being a leader is realizing that you’re not one.

If you're dating a writer and they don't write about you - whether good or bad - then they don't love you. They just don't. Writers fall in love with the people we find inspiring.

and to be in charge of life is always an occasion for loyalty.

For by nature I am a sort of meeting place of countless streams of ancestral tendency.

You realize the moment you dropped that book, we stopped being partners,” Royce said. “Oh yeah-you’re right. Huh. I should have left you for dead after all.” “What’s the real reason? Just before we started up, you said that you were going to kill me after the job. You were going to show me how you use that big sword.” “I did. Weren’t you watching?” “Yes, I was, but you were going to use it to kill me.” “Damn it-you’re right. I forgot.” Hadrian reached up weakly to touch the pommel of his sword. “Can we do that later? I’m pretty comfortable right now.” He let his arm slap back on the grass. “Why’d you come back? Why didn’t you just leave?” “This really bothers you, doesn’t it?” “Yes. Yes, it does.

Constructed almost entirely of wood, with a two-man crew and no defensive guns, the little plane could carry four thousand pounds of bombs to Berlin. With two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and a top speed of four hundred miles per hour, it could usually outrun enemy fighters. The Mosquito, nicknamed “the Wooden Wonder,” could be assembled, cheaply, by cabinetmakers and carpenters.

You fight like a street thug,” Mauvin commented. “Because that’s what he is,” Royce assured them as he approached from the direction of the keep, “a big, dumb street thug. I once saw an old woman batter him senseless with a butter churn.” He shifted his attention to Hadrian. “Now what have you gotten yourself into? Looks like this kid will hand you a beating.” Mauvin stiffened and glared at Royce. “I would remind you that I’m a count’s son, and as such, you will refer to me as lord, or at least master, but not kid.” “Better watch out, Royce, or he’ll be after you next,

I was even starting to relax—a little—until he took me to his parents' house for dinner. I've never met two people more in need of a divorce. They bickered and fought all evening. Royce said that's how they express their love. I don't believe him. I mean, please. You tell me if you feel the love from this conversation (written word for word as I remember it): Linda: Elliot, be a dear and get me another drink. Elliot: Get it yourself. Linda: Get up and fix me a drink, you lazy man. Elliot: Woman, don't push me on this. I've finally gotten comfortable. Linda: (sugary sweet smile) I'll push you only when you're standing on a bridge. Elliot: If I were standing on a bridge and saw you coming, you wouldn't have to push me. I'd jump. See? Does that sound "loving" to you?

Don't you see?" She addressed the entire room. "We either fight here and win, or die trying, because there won't be anything left if we fail. This is the moment. This is the crucial point where the future of yet unborn generations will be decided either by our action or inaction. For centuries to come, people will look back at this time and rejoice at our courage or curse our weakness." She looked directly at Royce now. "For we have the power. Here. Now. In this place. We have the power to alter the course of history and we will be forever damned should we not so much as try!

Tonight?” Hadrian asked. “Shouldn’t such things be done in the daylight? When we can both see and things with complicated names aren’t flying around?” “Not if I’m right.” “And if you’re wrong?” “If I’m wrong, we’ll both certainly die—most likely by being eaten.” “The thing is, I know you’re not kidding. Did I mention I lost my weapons?” “With any luck we won’t need them. What we will need, however, is a good length of rope, sixty feet at least,” Royce told him. “Lanterns, wax, a tinderbox—” “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Hadrian asked miserably. “Not at all,” Royce replied.

Are you—” Hadrian began, but stopped. For the first time since their capture, he felt hopeful but thought better of it. He turned to Royce. “Is she being sarcastic? You can usually tell better than I.

IN 1908, A Harvard philosopher named Josiah Royce wrote a book with the title The Philosophy of Loyalty. Royce was not concerned with the trials of aging. But he was concerned with a puzzle that is fundamental to anyone contemplating his or her mortality. Royce wanted to understand why simply existing—why being merely housed and fed and safe and alive—seems empty and meaningless to us. What more is it that we need in order to feel that life is worthwhile? The answer, he believed, is that we all seek a cause beyond ourselves. This was, to him, an intrinsic human need. The cause could be large (family, country, principle) or small (a building project, the care of a pet). The important thing was that, in ascribing value to the cause and seeing it as worth making sacrifices for, we give our lives meaning.

Why didn’t we ever consider sailing as a profession?” Hadrian asked Royce as he moved to the side and faced the wind. He took a deep, satisfying breath and smiled. “This is nice. A lot better than a sweaty, fly-plagued horse—and look at the land go by! How fast do you think we’re going?” “The fact that we’re trapped here, with no chance of retreat except into the ocean, doesn’t bother you?” Hadrian glanced over the side at the heaving waves. “Well, not until now. Why do you always have to ruin everything? Couldn’t you let me enjoy the moment?” “You know me, just trying to keep things in perspective.

If I ever say, “I have undone that deed,” I shall be both a fool and a liar. Counsel me, if you will, to forget that deed. Counsel me to do good deeds without number to set over against that treason. Counsel me to be cheerful . . . Counsel me to plunge into Lethe. All such counsel may be, in its way and time, good. Only do not counsel me “to get rid of” just that sin. That, so far as the real facts are concerned, cannot be done. For I am, and to the end of endless time shall remain, the doer of that wilfully traitorous deed. Whatever other value I may get, that value I retain forever. My guilt is as enduring as time.

I still can’t believe it was news that I get my hair cut at the barbershop. Where else would I get it cut? Why do I drive a pickup truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce? Nowadays,

Good afternoon,” Hadrian offered, but no one replied. No one smiled. Some whispered in the shelter of doorways. Mothers pulled children inside and men picked up pitchforks or axes. “This is where you grew up?” Arista whispered to Hadrian. “Somehow it seems more like how I would imagine Royce’s hometown to be.” This brought a look from Royce. “They don’t get too many travelers here,” Hadrian explained. “I can see why.

This was the move that was supposed to sweep me away. She seemed a little out of practice. I guess life with Charley Royce hadn’t exactly been the third reel of The English Patient. It had to be bad if Mickey Dolan was your back-up. Not to put Mickey down but he didn’t strike me as the lover-boy type. Especially when he took out his teeth. The last time Mickey thought about pleasing anybody but himself was just before he discovered how to sniff glue.

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe’s frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe’s massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God.

Royce started for the steps. Hadrian whirled with his hand up. “No! Just relax. Let me deal with this.” Royce hesitated, more because Hadrian was blocking the way than because he agreed. Everyone turned to look at Hadrian as he began kicking at one of the pretty lathed spindles that decorated the porch railing. He snapped one off and wrenched it free. “Hey!” Abby said. “Sorry, I’ll fix it later, but I need something blunt to hit them with.” This got the men’s attention and the one let go of Jasmine, who escaped into the house. “All I can say is you’d better do a good job,” Royce threatened. “If either of them leaves that porch, they’re mine.” “Royce, they’re not even armed.” “They have arms—but I’ll remedy that.

Thirty years after Apple went public, he reflected on what it was like to come into money suddenly: I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I always knew I could get by. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn’t have to worry about money. I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money ruin my life.

Royce watched the courier ride out of sight before taking off his imperial uniform. Turning to face Hadrian, he said, “Well, that wasn’t so hard.” “Will?” Hadrian asked as the two slipped into the forest. Royce nodded. “Remember yesterday you complained that you’d rather be an actor? I was giving you a part: Will, the Imperial Checkpoint Sentry. I thought you did rather well with the role.” “You know, you don’t need to mock all my ideas.” Hadrian frowned as he pulled his own tabard over his head. “Besides, I still think we should consider it. We could travel from town to town performing in dramatic plays, even a few comedies.” Hadrian gave his smaller partner an appraising look. “Though maybe you should stick to drama—perhaps tragedies.” Royce glared back. “What? I think I would make a superb actor. I see myself as a dashing leading man. We could definitely land parts in The Crown Conspiracy. I’ll play the handsome swordsman that fights the villain, and you—well, you can be the other one.

Is this where it was?” Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower. “How should I know?” Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. “I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things.” “Maybe they’re compensating,” Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope. “Damn it, Royce. It’s been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger, and if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again.” “That’s why you shouldn’t make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat.” Hadrian sighed, staring upward. “That’s one tall tower.” “And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they’ve let it rot. You should be happy—the last eight years would only have eroded it further. It should be easier.” “It’s granite, Royce. Granite doesn’t erode much in eight years

Instead of buying a Mercedes, you can buy a Toyota; and then use the extra money that you would have spent every month, for about five years, on the installment, fuel, and insurance to buy shares in the company that owns Mercedes … or the one that owns Rolls Royce.

Royce Davenport, turn around and look at me,” Pandora demands. I pick up Lav and hold her up beside my face. “Would we lie to you?” Pandora bites her lip and shakes her head. “You’re not allowed to use her cuteness to get out of trouble. Come to Mama, little one.” She takes Lavender, and then I scoop the both of them in my arms and walk toward the door. “Tell you what, why don’t we let your parents watch little Lav tonight, and you and me have some alone time? You know, see what happens.” Pandora rolls her eyes, but I know she’s thinking about it.

The guards at the gate nodded and smiled at them. “I hate that,” Royce muttered as they passed. “What?” “They didn’t even think to stop us, and they actually smiled. They know us by sight now—by sight. Alric used to have the decency to send word discreetly and receive us unannounced. Now uniformed soldiers knock on the door in daylight, waving and saying, ‘Hello, we have a job for you.’” “He didn’t wave.” “Give it time, he will be—waving and grinning. One day Jeremy will be buying drinks for his soldier buddies at The Rose and Thorn. They’ll all be there, the entire sentry squad, laughing, smiling, throwing their arms over our shoulders and asking us to sing ‘Calide Portmore’ with them—‘Once more, with gusto!’ And at some point one particularly sweaty ox will give me a hug and say how honored he is to be in our company.” “Jeremy?” “What? That’s his name.” “You know the name of the soldier at the gate?” Royce scowled. “You see my point? Yes, I know his name and they know ours. We might as well wear uniforms and move into Arista’s old room.” They climbed the stone steps to the main entrance, where a soldier quickly opened a door for them and gave a slight bow. “Master Melborn, Master Blackwater.” “Hey, Digby.” Hadrian waved as he passed. When he caught Royce scowling, he added, “Sorry.” “It’s a good thing we’re both retired. You know, there’s a reason there are no famous living thieves

At the precise moment set out in the timetable, Meghan arrived at the chapel in a Rolls-Royce, the same vehicle that had carried Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee and the Duke of Windsor’s wife, to her husband’s funeral in 1972. The official’s choice was deliberate. As she stepped out of the limousine, Meghan’s bridal train was caught. The escorting officer who opened the door offered no help. The explanation foreshadowed what was to come. After her rudeness during the rehearsal the previous day, explained an officer, no one had any feelings of goodwill towards the bride.

Royce’s lecture on Hegel told me why: We are all aware, if we have ever tried it, how empty and ghostly is a life lived for a long while in absolute solitude. Free me from my fellows, let me alone to work out the salvation of my own glorious self, and surely (so I may fancy) I shall now for the first time show who I am. No, not so; on the contrary I merely show in such a case who I am not. I am no longer friend, brother, companion, co-worker, servant, citizen, father, son; I exist for nobody; and erelong, perhaps to my surprise, generally to my horror, I discover that I am nobody. I

If you die, you won't be my uncle anymore," Royce offered. "Planning to do me in, are you?" Royce pondered this a moment before saying, "Not until I'm older." "How very reassuring. I shall sleep better at night, knowing it. Be sure to let me know the date on which you plan to kill me, won't you?

Brook trailed a gloved hand along the door, cast one glance over her shoulder, and let herself in. She couldn't stop the grin as she gripped the wheel of the Rolls-Royce. And why should she? Only a fool would leave such a car running right outside her door and not except her to do something about it.

December 1931 was drawing to a close and Hollywood was aglow with Christmas spirit, undaunted by sizzling sunshine, palm trees, and the dry encircling hills that would never feel the kiss of snow. But the “Know-how” that would transform the Chaplin studio in the frozen Chilkoot Pass could easily achieve a white Christmas. In Wilson’s Rolls-Royce convertible, we drove past Christmas trees heavy with fake snow. An entire estate on Fairfax Avenue had been draped in cotton batting; carolers straight out of Dickens were at its gate, perspiring under mufflers and greatcoats. The street signs on Hollywood Boulevard had been changed to Santa Claus Lane. They drooped with heavy glass icicles. A parade was led by a band blaring out “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” followed by Santa driving a sleigh. But Hollywood granted Santa the extra dimension of a Sweetheart and seated beside him was Clara Bow (or was it Mabel Normand?)

Toen de fiscus alles had aangeslagen, heb ik noodgedwongen met een Rolls moeten rijden. Vreselijk was dat. Zo ne lompen bak die om de vijf minuten kapot is. Ik kon er met moeite 200 kilometer per uur mee halen. Ik heb hem uiteindelijk verkocht, want ik ging nog liever te voet dan met die Rolls te moeten verder rijden.

When the snow lifted and I was able to get my medication, I felt like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz in need of oil to begin moving again. Then as I began to write, my mind was much more fluid. I had the cognitive fuel to function. My brain was the same brain it was the day before, I had the same interest, motivation, ideas, and abilities, but without the medication, I just didn’t have the fuel to access those parts of me and use them. Even a luxury car like a Rolls Royce isn’t going anywhere without fuel. In the same way, medication for individuals with AD/HD is often the fuel that allows the brain to function smoothly and work to its potential.

I am so obsessed with the cars that sometimes I feel like my heart is not a muscle, it's an engine.

I suspect she, or someone she reports to, read the note I left in my pack.” “You left a note for the thieves’ guild? What did it say?” “Just that they were my animals and that they might want to reconsider taking them.” Albert and Hadrian exchanged looks of bewilderment. “They know me, and we have an arrangement. They leave me alone…and I leave them alone.” “You leave them alone?” Albert said in a mocking tone. Royce smiled at him. It was not a friendly smile. Royce searched his pack and pulled out a small bit of parchment. “What’s it say?” Albert asked. “Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience,” Royce recited, then chuckled before finishing. “The bitch didn’t know.” Royce held up the parchment and in a loud voice said, “Accepted.

Royce sighed. The sigh was new. “You don’t know this woman. This isn’t your problem.” “I know that.” “So why are you helping her?” “Because that’s what people do. They help each other. If you saw a man lying in the road with an arrow in him, you’d stop, wouldn’t you?” “Of course,” Royce replied, “anyone would. A wounded man is easy pickings, unless you could see from your saddle that someone else has already taken his purse.” “What? No! No one would rob a wounded man and leave him to die.” Royce nodded. “Well, no. You’re right. If he has a purse and you take it, it’s best to slit his throat afterward. Too many people live through arrow wounds, and you don’t want the bugger recovering and coming after you.” The old woman looked at Royce aghast. Now it was Hadrian’s turn to sigh. “Don’t mind him; he was raised by wolves.

You realize we can’t go back to Sheridan.” “I know.” “Have to keep heading southwest now, and I don’t know anything about the area. We’ll probably get lost or walk into a road and a patrol.” “Well”-Hadrian looked down at Royce’s side-“you’re bleeding again, and I think I am, too, so the good news is we’ll likely die before morning. Still, I suppose it could be worse.” “How?” “They could have caught us at the tavern, or we could have drowned in that river.” “Either way we’d be dead. At this point I’m inclined to see that as better off.” “Anything can always be worse,” Hadrian assured him. They lay staring up at the sky and watching clouds blot out the stars. Royce heard it before he felt it. A distant patter on the blades of grass along the hillside. He turned once more to Hadrian. “I’m really starting to hate you.

By the way,” Hadrian began, “what was the real reason you didn’t tell me?” “Huh?” “A bit ago you said—” “Oh.” Royce continued to study the walls. He seemed a little too preoccupied by them. Just as Hadrian was sure he would not answer, Royce said, “I didn’t want you to leave.” Hadrian almost laughed at the comment, thinking it was a joke, and then nearly bit his tongue. Thinking of Royce as anything but callous was difficult. Then he realized Royce never had a family and precious few friends. He had grown up an orphan on the streets of Ratibor, stealing his food and clothes and likely receiving his share of beatings for it. He had probably joined the Diamond as much from a desire to belong as a means to profit. After only a few short years, they had betrayed him. Hadrian realized at that moment that Royce did not see him as just his partner, but his family. Along with Gwen and perhaps Arcadius, Hadrian was the only one he had.

You came all this way for a whore?” Albert asked, and Royce shot him a harsh look. “Don’t call her that if you want to live a long and happy life,” Hadrian said as they dismounted. “But this is a whorehouse—a brothel, right? And you’re here to see a woman, so—” “So keep talking, Albert.” Hadrian tied his horse to the post. “Just let me get farther away.” Gwen saved our lives,” Royce said, looking up at the porch. “I beat on doors. I even yelled for help.” He looked at Albert, letting that image sink in. Yes, I yelled for help. “No one cared.” Royce gestured toward Hadrian. “He was dying in a pool of blood, and I was about to pass out. Broken leg, my side sliced open, the world spinning. Then she was there saying, ‘I’ve got you. You’ll be all right now.’ We would have died in the mud and the rain, but she took us in, nursed us back to health. People were after us—lots of people … lots of powerful people—but she kept us hidden for weeks, and she never asked for payment or explanation. She never asked for anything.” Royce turned back to Albert. “So if you call her a whore again, I’ll cut your tongue out and nail it to your chest.” Albert nodded. “Point taken.” Royce climbed the steps to the House and rapped once. Albert leaned over to Hadrian and whispered, “He knocks at a—” “Royce can still hear you.” Hadrian stopped him. “Really?” “Pretty sure. You have no idea how much trouble I got into before I learned that. Now I never say anything I don’t want him to know.

Royce found Hadrian splitting logs near the stockade gate. He was naked to the waist except for the small silver medallion that dangled from his neck as he bent forward to place another wedge. He had a solid sweat worked up along with a sizable pile of wood. “Been meddling, have you?” Royce asked, looking around at the hive of activity. “You must admit they didn’t have much in the way of a defense plan,” Hadrian said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Royce smiled at him. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” “And you? Did you find the doorknob?” Hadrian picked up a jug and downed several swallows, drinking so quickly some of the water dripped down his chin. He poured some in his palm and rinsed his face, running his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t even get close enough to see a door.” “Well, look on the bright side”—Hadrian smiled—“at least you weren’t captured and condemned to death this time.” “That’s the bright side?” “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-full kinda guy.” There he is,” Russell Bothwick shouted, pointing. “That’s Royce over there.” “What’s going on?” Royce asked as throngs of people suddenly moved toward him from the field and the castle interior. “I mentioned that you saw the thing and now they want to know what it looks like,” Hadrian explained. “What did you think? They were coming to lynch you?” He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy.” “Half empty?” Hadrian chuckled. “Was there ever any drink in that glass?

You didn’t kill him, did you?” “No. I locked him in the chapel but it won’t hold. Which reminds me, could I borrow your sword? You’re not going to use it, anyway.” Royce handed him the falchion sword that had been part of his castle guard disguise. Hadrian took the weapon, slipped it from its sheath, and weighed it in his hand. “I tell you, these swords are terrible. They are heavy and have all the balance of a drunken three-legged dog trying to take a piss.” He then looked at Arista and added, “Oh, excuse me, Your Highness. How are you doing, Princess?

A loose board on the boat’s deck creaked under Hadrian’s weight and Royce glared at him. Twelve years they had worked together, and still Royce did not seem capable of understanding that Hadrian could not float. The problem was that Royce apparently could. He made it look so easy. Hadrian walked like the caricature of a thief—on his toes, his arms out for balance, wavering up and down as if he were on a tightrope. Royce walked as casually as if he were sauntering down a city street. They communicated as they always did on the job, with facial expressions and hand gestures. Royce had learned sign language as part of his guild training but had never bothered teaching Hadrian more than a few signals. Royce was always able to communicate what he needed by pointing, counting with his fingers, or making simple obvious signs like scissoring his fingers across his level palm, imitating legs walking on a floor. He expressed most of his silent dialogue the way he was now: through rolled eyes, glares, and the pitiable shaking of his head. Given how irritated he so often looked, it was a mystery why he put up with Hadrian.

They watched each other, staring across the green. Royce walked forward, crossing the distance between them in silence. Two ghosts meeting at a crossroad. “It’s been a while—Esra is it? Or should I call you Mr. Haddon?” The man tilted his head, lifting his eyes. “I am delighted to see you as well, Royce.” “How do you know my name?” “I’m a wizard, or did you miss that from our last meeting?” Royce paused and smiled. “You know, you’re right; I might have. Perhaps you should write it down for me lest I forget again.” Esrahaddon raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit harsh.

Degan struck the wall with the back of his head, bounced off, and fell to his knees. Hadrian felt the pain in his knuckles and only then realized he had hit him. Gaunt glared up, his eyes watering, his hands cupping his face. “Crazy fool! Are you mad?” “What’s going on?” Arista called back down the line. “This idiot just punched me in the face! My nose is bleeding!” “Hadrian did?” the princess said, stunned. “It was… an accident,” Hadrian replied, knowing it sounded feeble, but not knowing how else to describe his actions. He had not meant to hit Gaunt; it had just happened. “You accidentally punched him?” Wyatt asked, suppressing a chuckle. “I’m not sure you have a full understanding of the whole bodyguard thing.” “Hadrian!” Royce called. “What?” he shouted back, irritated that even Royce was going to join in this embarrassing moment. “Come up here. I need you to look at something.” Degan was still on his knees in a pool of water. “Um—sorry ’bout that.” “Get away from me!” Hadrian moved up the line as Wyatt, Elden, and Myron pressed themselves against the walls to let him pass, each one looking at him curiously. “What did he do?” Arista whispered as he reached her. “Nothing, really.” Her eyebrows rose. “You punched him for no reason?” “Well, no, but—it’s complicated. I’m not even sure I understand it. It was sort of like a reflex, I guess.” “A… reflex?” she said. “I told him I was sorry.” “Anytime today would be nice,” Royce said. Arista stepped aside, looking at him suspiciously as he passed. “What was all that about?” Alric asked as he approached. “I, ah—I punched Gaunt in the face.” “Good for you,” Alric told him. “About time someone did,” Mauvin said. “I’m just sorry you beat me to it.

Consider the fact that we care deeply about what happens to the world after we die. If self-interests were the primary source of meaning in life, then it wouldn’t matter to people if an hour after their death everyone they know were to be wiped from the face of the earth. Yet, it matters greatly to most people. We feel that such an occurrence would make our lives meaningless. The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater; a family, a community, a society. If you don’t, mortality is only a horror, but if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, solves the paradox of our ordinary existence, by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves, the will which delights to do this service, and is not thwarted, but enriched and expressed in such service… Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential. As our time winds down, we all seek comfort in simple pleasures; companionship, everyday routines, the taste of good food, the warmth of sunlight on our faces. We become less interested in the awards of achieving and accumulating and more interested in the rewards of simply being. Yet, while we may feel less ambitious, we also have become concerned for our legacy, and we have a deep need to identify purposes outside ourselves that make living feel meaningful and worthwhile. In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments, which after all is mostly nothing much, plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments; the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute by minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self, which is absorbed in the moment, your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery, but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out.

I don’t have a single callus. Even if I decided to leave title and pride behind, I lack any useful skills. I’m like a milk cow slapped on the backside and turned out of the barn to make her way in the forest. A chicken, returned to the wilds to fend for myself.” “I don’t think chicken’s have ever been wild,” Hadrian said. “Exactly.” Albert paused to stare at the remainder of the salt pork strip. “Your friend is right. This is just prolonging the inevitable. It’s a waste. Here.” He held out the meat. “Keep it,” Hadrian said, tilting his head at Royce. “I’m supposed to be learning a lesson.” “Oh shut up, the both of you. I have more.” Royce pulled another strip of pork from his vest and handed it to Hadrian. “So that’s my miserable story,” Albert said. “How about you two?” He looked at Hadrian. “I’m guessing you’re his apprentice?” Hadrian laughed. “No. We’re…business partners.” “What line?” “Procurement,” Royce said. “What kind?” “Any kind,” Royce answered. Albert stared at them for a moment, then his eyes widened. “You are thieves.” “He is.” Hadrian pointed to Royce. “I’m new to this.” “Really? What did you used to do?” Hadrian thought a moment. “Kill people.

Vellum” is another name for skin—at one point, philosophy was bound up in the stuff. I reached down to pick up James’s first edition of Samuel Clarke’s A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, published in 1705, and gently fingered its cold white surface as if it were a sacred relic. The term “philosophical corpus” had never made sense until now. I turned the book over. Tenderly. It was a little body: skin wrapped around something beautiful and inexplicable. Putting it under my arm, I turned to the back corners of the library. Tucked away on one of the back shelves was Josiah Royce’s library: Descartes, Spinoza, Fichte, Mill, Dilthey, Lotze, Tarde, Boole. These books were filled with marginalia. I took a quick look at one of Royce’s jottings—something written in Greek about God and strife—but then grabbed the books that I could carry. I would think about marginalia later. This wasn’t just any set of books. It was the bridge between European and American philosophy. That afternoon at dusk I had the unshakable sense that I was missing the most important part of West Wind, and over the course of three years I saw that this premonition was more correct than I could have known. Instead

The federal government could make a Rolls Royce affordable for every American, but we would not be a richer country as a result. We would in fact be a much poorer country, because of all the vast resources transferred from other economic activities to subsidize an extravagant luxury. [...] To have politicians arbitrarily change the price tags, so that prices no longer represent the real costs, is to defeat the whole purpose [of an economy: to make trade-offs, with the prices of a market economy representing the costs of producing things]. Reality doesn't change when the government changes price tags. Talk about "bringing down health care costs" is not aimed at the costly legal environment in which medical science operates, or other sources of needless medical costs. It is aimed at price control, which hides costs rather than reducing them. [...] Whether in France during the 1790s, the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution, or in newly independent African nations during the past generation, governments have imposed artificially low prices on food. In each case, this led to artificially low supplies of food and artificially high levels of hunger. People who complain about the "prohibitive" cost of housing, or of going to college, for example, fail to understand that the whole point of costs is to be prohibitive. [...] The idea [that "basic necessities" should be a "right"] certainly sounds nice. But the very fact that we can seriously entertain such a notion, as if we were God on the first day of creation, instead of mortals constrained by the universe we find in place, shows the utter unreality of failing to understand that we can only make choices among alternatives actually available. [...] Trade-offs [as opposed to solutions] remain inescapable, whether they are made through a market or through politics. The difference is that price tags present all the trade-offs simultaneously, while political 'affordability' policies arbitrarily fix on whatever is hot at the moment. That is why cities have been financing all kinds of boondoggles for years, while their bridges rusted and the roadways crumbled.

Standing in the middle of the cellar with a sickened look on his face, Alric said, “I can’t believe I’m being subjected to this.” “Consider it a vacation,” Hadrian suggested. “For at least one day you get to pretend you are nobody, a common peasant, the son of a blacksmith perhaps.” “No,” Royce said, preparing his own sleeping space but keeping his boots on. “They might expect him to know things like how to use a hammer. And look at his hands. Anyone could tell he was lying.” “Most people have jobs that require the use of their hands, Royce,” Hadrian pointed out. He spread his cloak over himself and turned on his side. “What could a common peasant do that monks wouldn’t know the first thing about and wouldn’t cause calluses?” “He could be a thief or a whore.” They both looked at the prince, who cringed at his prospects. “I’m taking the cot,” Alric said.

Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. "How long were we on the road?" He paused to look up at the moon. "What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don't you think, Hadrian? The moon looks like a fingernail, ain't that right, Hadrian? The tree looks like a goddamn bear, don't it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and the ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon." Royce shifted to his side, hood up. "Yeah, well...thank Maribor and Novron I didn't need your help THAT time.

Snake,” Wyatt announced. “A big black one.” “There’s dozens of them,” Royce explained. “Where?” Alric asked. “Mostly behind you on the walls.” “What?” the king said, aghast. “Why didn’t you say something?” “Knowing would only make traveling slower.” “Are they poisonous?” Mauvin asked. They could all see the silhouetted shoulders of Royce’s shadow on the far wall shrug. “I demand you inform me of such things in future!” Alric declared. “Do you want to know about the giant millipedes, then too?” “Are you joking?” “Royce doesn’t make jokes,” Arista told him as she looked around, anxiously hugging herself. Immediately her robe brightened and she spotted two snakes on the walls, but they were a safe distance away. “He must be joking,” Alric muttered quietly. “I don’t see any.” “You aren’t looking up,” the thief said. Arista did not want to. Some instinct, a tiny voice, warned her to fight the impulse, but in the end she just could not help herself. On the low ceiling, illuminated brightly by the robe, slithered a mass of wormlike bugs with an uncountable number of hairlike feet. Each was nearly five inches in length and close to the width of a man’s finger. There were so many that they swarmed over each other until it was hard to tell if the ceiling was rock at all. Arista felt a chill run down her back. She clenched her teeth, forced her eyes to the floor, and focused on walking forward as quickly as possible. She promptly passed Alric and Mauvin, both moving quicker than normal. She reached Royce, who stood outside the corridor on a boulder at the entrance to a larger passage. “I guess I was wrong. Looks like I should have told you earlier,” Royce said, watching them race forward. “Are there…?” she asked, pointing upward without looking. Royce glanced up and shook his head. “Good,” she replied. “And please, if Alric wants to know these things, fine, but don’t tell me. I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing they were there.” She shivered. Everyone scurried out of the corridor except Myron, who lingered, staring up at the ceiling and smiling in fascination. “There are millions.

They came to a bend in the road where it turned more west than north, and there at the turn was a squat fir tree that for the last quarter mile Hadrian had suspected might be a bear. Coincidentally, at the same time as they passed the tree, Hadrian finally reached the conclusion that Arcadius was senile. The man was old to be sure. Older than anyone he’d ever met. Older even than his father, who at the time of his departure was the oldest man in Hintindar-though everyone said he carried his age well. The professor didn’t carry his age well at all, and old folks sometimes went batty. One didn’t even need to be that old. Hadrian knew a warlord in the Gur Em who spoke of himself as if he were another person in the room. Sometimes he got in arguments to the point of refusing to speak to himself anymore and insisted others relay messages “to that idiot.” And the warlord was nowhere near Arcadius’s age. The best that could be said for Arcadius was that he carried his insanity well. So well in fact that it took Hadrian all the way to the bear tree to conclude the professor was crazy. He had to be. There was just no sense in asking him to pair up with Royce.

Eliot's own reflections on the primitive mind as a model for nondualistic thinking and on the nature and consequences of different modes of consciousness were informed by an excellent education in the social sciences and philosophy. As a prelude to our guided tour of the text of The Waste Land, we now turn to a brief survey of some of his intellectual preoccupations in the decade before he wrote it, preoccupations which in our view are enormously helpful in understanding the form of the poem. Eliot entered Harvard as a freshman in 1906 and finished his doctoral dissertation in 1916, with one of the academic years spent at the Sorbonne and one at Oxford. At Harvard and Oxford, he had as teachers some of modern philosophy's most distinguished individuals, including George Santayana, Josiah Royce, Bertrand Russell, and Harold Joachim; and while at the Sorbonne, he attended the lectures of Henri Bergson, a philosophic star in Paris in 1910-11. Under the supervision of Royce, Eliot wrote his dissertation on the epistemology of F. H. Bradley, a major voice in the late-nineteenth-, early-twentieth-century crisis in philosophy. Eliot extended this period of concentration on philosophical problems by devoting much of his time between 1915 and the early twenties to book reviewing. His education and early book reviewing occurred during the period of epistemological disorientation described in our first chapter, the period of "betweenness" described by Heidegger and Ortega y Gasset, the period of the revolt against dualism described by Lovejoy. 2 Eliot's personal awareness of the contemporary epistemological crisis was intensified by the fact that while he was writing his dissertation on Bradley he and his new wife were actually living with Bertrand Russell. Russell as the representative of neorealism and Bradley as the representative of neoidealism were perhaps the leading expositors of opposite responses to the crisis discussed in our first chapter. Eliot's situation was extraordinary. He was a close student of both Bradley and Russell; he had studied with Bradley's friend and disciple Harold Joachim and with Russell himself. And in 1915-16, while writing a dissertation explaining and in general defending Bradley against Russell, Eliot found himself face to face with Russell across the breakfast table. Moreover, as the husband of a fragile wife to whom both men (each in his own way) were devoted, Eliot must have found life to be a kaleidoscope of brilliant and fluctuating patterns.

A Favorite start to a book [sorry it's long!]: "In yesterday’s Sunday Times, a report from Francistown in Botswana. Sometime last week, in the middle of the night, a car, a white American model, drove up to a house in a residential area. Men wearing balaclavas jumped out, kicked down the front door, and began shooting. When they had done with shooting they set fire to the house and drove off. From the embers the neighbors dragged seven charred bodies: two men, three women, two children. Th killers appeared to be black, but one of the neighbors heard them speaking Afrikaans among themselves. And was convinced they were whites in blackface. The dead were South Africans, refugees who had moved into the house mere weeks ago. Approached for comment, the SA Minister of Foreign Affairs, through a spokesman, calls the report ‘unverified’. Inquiries will be undertaken, he says, to determine whether the deceased were indeed SA citizens. As for the military, an unnamed source denies that the SA Defence Force had anything to do with the matter. The killings are probably an internal ANC matter, he suggests, reflecting ‘ongoing tensions between factions. So they come out, week after week, these tales from the borderlands, murders followed by bland denials. He reads the reports and feels soiled. So this is what he has come back to! Yet where in the world can one hide where one will not feel soiled? Would he feel any cleaner in the snows of Sweden, reading at a distance about his people and their latest pranks? How to escape the filth: not a new question. An old rat-question that will not let go, that leaves its nasty, suppurating wound. Agenbite of inwit. ‘I see the Defense Force is up to its old tricks again,’ he remarks to his father. ‘In Botswana this time.’ But his father is too wary to rise to the bait. When his father picks up the newspaper, he cares to skip straight to the sports pages, missing out the politics—the politics and the killings. His father has nothing but disdain for the continent to the north of them. Buffoons is the word he uses to dismiss the leaders of African states: petty tyrants who can barely spell their own names, chauffeured from one banquet to another in their Rolls-Royces, wearing Ruritanian uniforms festooned with medals they have awarded themselves. Africa: a place of starving masses with homicidal buffoons lording over them. ‘They broke into a house in Francistown and killed everyone,’ he presses on nonetheless. ‘Executed them .Including the children. Look. Read the report. It’s on the front page.’ His father shrugs. His father can find no form of words spacious enough to cover his distaste for, on one hand, thugs who slaughter defenceless women and children and, on the other, terrorists who wage war from havens across the border. He resolves the problem by immersing himself in the cricket scores. As a response to moral dilemma it is feeble; yet is his own response—fits of anger and despair—any better?" Summertime, Coetzee

I ran into him at the library one other time, with my mother, as he was coming out and we were walking past on our way to the post office. He tipped his hat to her, and she nodded, and though I wanted to tell my mother who he was, my stomach went cold, and all I managed was a meek hello. For the rest of the afternoon I felt like crying without knowing why. It wasn’t until later that I realized that I couldn’t picture Dr. Young walking into Mr. Awad’s store—how could I, when Mr. Awad warns us to always check for the back of a cloche hat or a curl of yellow hair before we step out to dress a mannequin, so that the American women won’t see our dirty hands? The white Americans might be ajanib, but my parents say we’re white, too, or we must be something close to it if we are both Christians, and I think they really believe that if we keep our noses in our work, a day will come when we’ll earn more than their disdain. In the meantime, my mother whispers about the widow Haddad and scrubs my face with turmeric, and my father warns me against dating like the American girls, saying, Do you know how hard we worked to get you here? Neither of them know what Mrs. Theodore taught me about my color in the back of that Rolls-Royce. In that moment with my mother and Dr. Young, little wing, when I felt the cold drip of fear in my stomach, I realized that an infinite number of moments had instilled in me a reflex as potent and inescapable as a sneeze. It was like seeing the shape of something large coming toward you in the dark.