4 Quotes by Raymond St. Elmo

Every soul is entitled to a daily ration of madness.

We look into the eyes of a dog and know ourselves in the presence of a being that forgives all debts. Surely it is some natural relation twixt our species? We can’t all have been saved by our dogs. Unless that look in their eyes is itself a kind of salvation.

In the modern world it is not bricks and roads, cannon and swords that define power. No; it is paper. Books of law, deeds of ownership, writs of forbiddance and permission. Titles of lordship, directives of the king’s sub-Ministry for Associated Trade. Memoranda from that last desk alone could sink and shake kingdoms, decide the fates of thousands across the sea. Ink runs thicker than blood. Paper: more powerful than an army or the pox.

What had I believed at ten? Anything I wanted. Any tale to make the day more fun, the night more alarming. In giant pigs rooting beneath the streets. In the corpse-eaters who pulled black carts by night, hunting children out past curfew.