'All failures are temporary, flawed in the particular. Correct the particular and victory will be won next time around.'

'Until a situation arises where there is no second opportunity.'

'And future scholars will dissect every moment of these days, assembling their lists of the particulars, the specifics from which no generalization threatening the prime assumptions can ever be derived. It is, in truth, an exquisite paradigm, the perfect mechanism ensuring the persistent survival of an entire host of terrible, brutal beliefs.

— Midnight tides : a tale of the Malazan book of the fallen by Steven Erikson