" High in a turret of a great castle rising on a black crag above snowy plains, besieged and grand, crammed full of an empire’s treasure, and he sitting by a log fire with a sad and lovely princess. . . . I used to dream about such things, he thought. I used to long for them, ache for them. They seemed the very stuff of life, its essence. So why does all this taste of ashes? "

― Iain M. Banks , Use of Weapons (Culture, #3)