I Had No Taste For Defeat -

We Live In An Age In Which There Is No Heroic Death.

We Had Stretched Out Our Arms To Each Other And Supported Something In Our Joined Hands, But This Thing We Were Holding Was Like A Sort Of Gas That Exists When You Believe In Its Existence And Disappears When You Doubt. The Task Of Supporting It Seems Simple At First Glance, But Actually Requires An Ultimate Refinement Of Calculation And A Consummate Skill.

According To Eshin's Essentials Of Salvation, The Ten Pleasures Are But A Drop In The Ocean When Compared To The Joys Of The Pure Land.

I Had No Taste For Defeat - Much Less Victory - Without A Fight.

I Had Long Since Insisted Upon Interpreting The Things That Fate Forced Me To Do As Victories Of My Own Will And Intelligence, And Now This Bad Habit Had Grown Into A Sort Of Frenzied Arrogance. In The Nature Of What I Was Calling My Intelligence There Was A Touch Of Something Illegitimate, A Touch Of The Sham Pretender Who Has Been Placed On The Throne By Some Freak Chance. This Dolt Of A Usurper Could Not Foresee The Revenge That Would Inevitably Be Wreaked Upon His Stupid Despotism.