Being alive meant I was in trouble. I remembered dying. Your own murder is not something that slips your mind.

“And that’s why. That right there. Power makes you stupid, Bolas. Power makes everyone stupid. You don’t have to be smart when you can be strong. When was the last time you had to, say, outwit someone? Why bother, when you can destroy them—destroy anyone—with a shrug?” “Which you should keep in mind.” “That’s the difference between us. I have to be smart; my intellect is my only useful weapon."

He had learned, from long experience, that people who say, “I know ‘something’ like the back of my hand,” are often correct only because they don’t actually know the backs of their hands—or their fronts, for that matter—in any meaningful way.