“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“And outdated wiring,” her father would have added.”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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“Despite the South’s military setbacks, they retained their value for most of the war for the simple reason that the price of the underlying security, cotton, was rising as a consequence of increased wartime demand. Indeed, the price of the bonds actually doubled between December 1863 and September 1864, despite the Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, because the price of cotton was soaring.”
― Niall Ferguson, quote from The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
“We are responsible not only for what we do, but also for what we fail to do.”
― Jan-Philipp Sendker, quote from A Well-Tempered Heart
“Fuck it,' I hear him mutter, and the next thing I know he's taking hold of my hand.”
― Samantha Towle, quote from Trouble
“A aparência de um espírito depende inteiramente do modo como ele decide projetar a si mesmo, ou de como vê a si próprio em sua mente. É por isso que contatos com espíritos presos à terra nem sempre são eventos tranquilos, passivos. A tragédia vem em muitas formas, em geral acompanhada de violência, e os últimos pensamentos de um indivíduo tendem a dominar a mente do seu espírito após a morte física. Assim, via de regra, o fantasma se manifestará em um espetáculo grotesco, que representa o modo como ele morreu”
― quote from The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren
“There’s a thin line between saving someone and helping them destroy themselves”
― Lara Zielin, quote from The Waiting Sky
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