Violence

When you have killed people with your hands, and a year later you are in a bar… facing a guy who is trying to pick a fight, his mind can no way reach out to the extremes of violence you have known. His fantasy of how the fight might go would carry him to where he put you on the ground and put a boot in your head. Your mind has gone right past that, past seeing the man altogether. Get in a fight, and you know how easy it is to take his life away. His detuning from the fact that he could hurt you and kick you in the end can no way be compared with you detuning from the knowledge that you can kill him.
— James Hudson. The Five Fingers