Juliet O'Connor

“The rich “learn lessons.” The poor commit crimes. “Mistakes” are generally considered a mark of the middle class.”
― Josiah Bancroft, The Hod King

“The man or woman who is rarely lost, rarely discovers anything new.”
― Josiah Bancroft, Arm of the Sphinx

“It is not cynical to admit that the past has been turned into a fiction. It is a story, not a fact. The real has been erased. Whole eras have been added and removed. Wars have been aggrandized, and human struggle relegated to the margins. Villains are redressed as heroes. Generous, striving, imperfect men and women have been stripped of their flaws or plucked of their virtues and turned into figurines of morality or depravity. Whole societies have been fixed with motive and vision and equanimity where there was none. Suffering has been recast as noble sacrifice!”
― Josiah Bancroft, Arm of the Sphinx

“Suits me. I’d rather be a nothing at the center of everything than a puffed-up somebody at the edge of it all.” She said this in her usual unguarded way. And without meaning to, she had described him exactly: a puffed-up somebody at the edge of it all.”
― Josiah Bancroft, Senlin Ascends