Malik

“Of all the echoing phrases in all the double talk of diplomacy, non-intervention is one the emptiest. There’s no such animal. If you see a man knock down a woman and you don’t knock down the man, you probably tell yourself you’re practicing the policy of non-intervention, but of course you’re doing no such thing. By failing to intervene on behalf of the woman, you are in fact intervening on behalf of the man.”
― Orson Welles

“What he was asking for was, effectively, a story without all the conflict. Without tension and animosity. Without many of the things I'd been taught were essential to storytelling.
This wasn't a totally new idea to me. I'd already spent 14 years writing a fantasy novel without a single sword-fight, goblin army, or looming apocalypse. I had specifically avoided having a god-lion tortured to death, or farm boys straight-up murk any tyrants or mad wizards. Nobody destroyed anything in a volcano thereby ruining magic forever and making all the elves sad enough to fuck off forever out of the world.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Narrow Road Between Desires

“When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.”
― Orson Welles

“Bast knew true silence was unnatural. To a careful ear, silence sounded like a knife in the dark.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Narrow Road Between Desires