The First Love Is The Difficult Love.

You Would Do Well To Know, Marcus, That Irritating A Better Swordsman Than Yourself Is A Good Way To End Up Dead.

My Dear Dead Mother Wanted Me To Go Into An Honorable Trade, Like Grave Robbing. Would I Listen? No. Be An Assassin, Like Your Uncle Gustav, She Said. Would I Pay Heed? No. Apprentice To The Necromancer―

The Issue Of The Betrayal Was So Central To That, I Felt The Need To Comment Upon It. My Choices Were To Ignore The Games And Put Them 'outside' Of Continuity Or To Integrate Them. I Chose The Latter.

There Is No Idea So Brilliant Or Original That A Sufficiently-untalented Writer Can't Screw It Up.

Every Person You Encounter, Whom You Interact With, Is There To Teach You Something. Sometimes It May Be Years Before You Realize What Each Had To Show You.