“the party that governed, restored an orderly nation. Success through merit alone. Economic rationalism. Prosperity through order.” He snickered. “Finally, a party that kept their campaign promises. Judges, politicians, leaders of any kind were jailed, intimidated, or paid off. Just about every major news service was bought out by Orderist supporters. What was left was mostly drowned out.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“Among the families I grew up with, and within my own, there is always the game. This competition to be more, have more, to seek position, status.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“Groups of highborn clustered in the halls like nests of roaches.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“I wrote that outsiders were often lonely, but they needed to be to change the world around them. And they understood loyalty far better than those blessed by the embrace of society.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“The highborn talk about merit, bettering yourself, democracy, but it’s all crap. A rich man’s got a vote allocation of a thousand, and Aba’s got one, because she pays less tax. They get their own streets, their own parks, their own police, their own special net. Then they complain about the burden of the low Aptitude Tiers of society.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“A woman with legs up to my chest emerged from one of the illustrious establishments. She was shaped like an hourglass, but had the shrunken face of a mummy.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“The uproar among the masses would be suppressed, then the information discredited and forgotten.”
― Julian North, quote from Age of Order
“One of these, bearing the name of Crampton, is an adorable blonde with a shrill voice, a long slender body imprisoned in a shiny brass corset, and supple catlike movements; a smart golden blonde whose extraordinary grace can be quite terrifying when she stiffens her muscles of steel, sends the sweat pouring down her steaming flanks, sets her elegant wheels spinning in their wide circles, and hurtles away, full of life, at the head of an express or a boat-train.
The other, Engerth by name, is a strapping saturnine brunette given to uttering raucous, guttural cries, with a thickset figure encased in armor-plating of cast iron; a monstrous creature with her disheveled mane of black smoke and her six wheels coupled together low down, she gives an indication of her fantastic strength when, with an effort that shakes the very earth, she slowly and deliberately drags along her heavy train of goods-wagons.”
― Joris-Karl Huysmans, quote from Against Nature
“The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart. And so, in the clash of these two extreme systems, one is witness to brute stupidity and blood-splashed insensitivity; two belligerent faces glowering at each other across the unfathomed distance, and yet, in deed and in fanatic regard, they are but mirror reflections. This would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetically idiotic…”
― Steven Erikson, quote from Reaper's Gale
“The most important thing I can add from my own observations is this: knowing it started from unremarkable circumstances should be a comfort to us all. Because it proves that you don’t need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you’ve got.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Pay It Forward
“NOBREZA SILENCIOSA. SILENT NOBILITY. It is a mistake to believe that the crucial moments of a life when its habitual direction changes forever must be loud and shrill dramatics, washed away by fierce internal surges. This is a kitschy fairy tale started by boozing journalists, flashbulb-seeking filmmakers and authors whose minds look like tabloids. In truth, the dramatics of a life-determining experience are often unbelievably soft. It has so little akin to the bang, the flash, of the volcanic eruption that, at the moment it is made, the experience is often not even noticed. When it deploys its revolutionary effect and plunges a life into a brand-new light giving it a brand-new melody, it does that silently and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility.”
― Pascal Mercier, quote from Night Train to Lisbon
“God, it drives me crazy when I know exactly what I want and I can't find it anywhere! It's like does anybody want my money!? I mean what the fuck!?”
― Daniel Clowes, quote from Ghost World
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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