“Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed. If you fought, screwed, screamed, laughed, or otherwise experienced life intensely, for better or worse, you left a record. Those who lived a quiet, well-behaved, well-tempered life? Gone without a trace.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“What do you know that you’re not telling me?"
"I don’t know what you know, so I don’t know what you don’t know.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Prague. Praha. The name actually meant “threshold”. Pollina had said the city was a portal between the life of the good and … the other. A city of dark magic, Alessandro had called it.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Men were ridiculous, in all cultures and across time.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Sometimes it was just better to blow shit up.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“History should be studied but not worshipped.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Isn’t it funny that only twenty years ago, they were down there cowering in terror that we trigger-happy, decadent, capitalist Americans would go nuclear on them any minute? Little did they know our secret weapon was Starbucks.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“The city was in a panic, though a panic in Italy means most people still stand around coffee bars drinking espresso and Prosecco.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“It wasn't enough to be alive. Everyone needed something to live for.
Or die for.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“This place was just a pile of old stones. Pretty stones arranged in intriguing ways, but just old stones.
“And outdated wiring,” her father would have added.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Dig your nails deep enough into the back of a Soviet, and eventually you'll find a Russian.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Eleanor was all apologies, but Sarah enjoyed seeing a bit more of the Czech countryside. You probably couldn't say that you had really seen a country if all you had seen was a city or two. You had to see where the food was grown, what the riverbanks looked like, and what the highway manners of the inhabitants were.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Rules of science.” Alessandro shrugged his elegant shoulders. “And what are those? We don’t even know how this works.” He pointed to his head.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Prague is a threshold.”
“A threshold?”
“Yes. Between the life of good and … the other.”
Sarah thought of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I’m not going to have to fight demons, am I?”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“...how strange and frightening and intoxicating life could be.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Charlotte Yates loved humanity with all her heart, but she really had to draw the line at individuals. For the most part they were incredibly stupid, clumsy, selfish, and criminally shortsighted. Look, for instance, at who they voted for.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“You see de white gown she wears, richly embroidered, showing de family’s wealth and influence,” said Daphne authoritatively. “De red rose in her hair symbolizes her Spanish ancestry. De prayer book in her left hand to display de Catholic allegiance.”
“What does the dog symbolize?” Sarah asked. Daphne blinked at her for a moment.
“De dog is just a dog,” she said, finally.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Charlotte Yates didn’t especially care for music. All that abstract mooning about. Words, that was what moved people. A good play was worth a thousand symphonies.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“She hadn’t really counted on having to measure pedagogic dick length with a whole tribe.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“The Nazis had been one thing. The communists were another. But now there were academics crawling all over the palace.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Served her right, really, having sex in a supply closet of the Boston Hyatt. But George had smelled like oranges and leather and he had bent her over one of those carts housekeeping wheeled around with soaps and shower caps and dry-cleaning request forms. That had been fun, and afterward she had pocketed some shampoo and conditioner.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Ludwig’s enormous, awe-inspiring genius, his productivity, his prescient modernism were all contained in music. Beside that, the letters to the Immortal Beloved looked no more impressive to her than bathroom stall graffiti: L.V.B. luvs his I.B. Wishes she wuz here.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“The cold war was over, but all the little games persisted. It was a good thing those puppets in the Middle East had been too busy grubbing around in their deserts to play any serious role in international espionage ... She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“They just didn't make them like that anymore. Nowadays she was lucky to get some mild flirtation from some leather-faced NRA lobbyist. Forget about doggy-style on an eighteenth-century canopied bed by a certified KGB agent who said things like “beg for it my little Yankee poodle.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Sarah felt about great sex the way St. George felt about slaying dragons...”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“... reminding her that life was short, and that soon she, too, would be one of the wraiths floating around the castle. But only if she really lived first, otherwise there would be no trace of her at all. Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“There. She had at last located the source of her sadness. It was people. Charlotte Yates loved humanity with all her heart, but she really had to draw the line at individuals.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
“Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed. If you fought, screwed, screamed, laughed, or otherwise experienced life intensely, for better or for worse, you left a record. Those who lived a quiet, well-behaved, well-tempered life? Gone without a trace.”
― Magnus Flyte, quote from City of Dark Magic
Magnus Flyte
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“On any given day, according to UPS, 2 percent of the world’s GDP can be found in UPS delivery trucks or package cars.”
― quote from The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
“Bobby spotted the black cat lying on a windowsill, sunning itself. They both walked over to it. Bobby tentatively reached out and rubbed his hands across the cat's belly. The cat purred. "Nice," the cat said dreamily. Bobby whipped his hand back.”
― D.J. MacHale, quote from The Quillan Games
“hadn’t even had the guts to say this to Arnie. “Yeah, set up a system that really works, a system that recognizes the good ones and gives them what they deserve. You know how hard that is in any organization? Hell, it was a struggle at my shop, and Treasury has more janitors than I had trading executives. I’m not even sure where to start a job like that,” Winston said. He would be one to grasp the scope of the dream, his President thought. “Harder than you think, even. The guys who really do the work don’t want to be bosses. They want to work. Cathy could be an administrator. They offered her the chair at the University of Virginia Medical School—and that would have been a big deal. But it would have cut her patient time in half, and she likes doing what she does. Someday Bernie Katz at Hopkins is going to retire, and they’ll offer his chair to her, and she’ll turn that down. Probably,” Jack thought. “Unless I can talk her out of it.” “Can’t be done, Jack.” TRADER shook his head. “Hell of an idea, though.” “Grover Cleveland reformed the Civil Service over a hundred years ago,” POTUS reminded his breakfast guest. “I know we can’t make it perfect, but we can make it better. You’re already trying—you just told me that. Think about it some.” “I’ll do that,” SecTreas promised, standing. “But for now, I have another revolution to foment. How many enemies can we afford to make?” “There’s always enemies, George. Jesus had enemies.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Executive Orders
“mayhap if I played at being the kind and gentle husband long enough, it would become true. Master Piero once told us that we might embody those qualities we desire to possess by embracing them, over and over, until the line between seeming and being is no more.”
― Jacqueline Carey, quote from Kushiel's Justice
“Walter's eyes were very wonderful. All the joy and sorrow and laughter and loyalty and aspirations of many generations lying under the sod looked out of their dark-gray depths.”
― L.M. Montgomery, quote from Rainbow Valley
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