“Here’s a tip. The good guys ask you to get in the truck. The bad guys put a black bag over your head and throw you in the truck. I’m asking.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Science lacks something very important that religion provides: a moral code. Survival of the fittest is a scientific fact, but it is a cruel ethic; the way of beasts, not a civilized society. Laws can only take us so far, and they must be based upon something—a shared moral code that rises from something. As that moral foundation recedes, so will society’s values.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“When you figure out that you're fighting some other man's war, walk away.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“We attack whatever is different, anything we don’t understand, anything that might change our world, our environment, reduce our chances of survival. Racism, class warfare, sexism, east versus west, north and south, capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorships, Islam and Christianity, Israel and Palestine, they’re all different faces of the same war: the war for a homogeneous human race, an end to our differences.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“It’s always the same war. Only the names of the dead change. It’s always about one thing: which group of rich men get to divvy up the spoils. They call it ‘The Great War’—clever marketing.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Great leaders are forged from the fire of hard decisions,”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“And when he was, when he finally found love after a life without, he died, happy. And the woman, all she ever wanted was to know that she could change the world, and if she could change the heart of the darkest man, then there was hope for the entire human race.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Ma’am, your husband was killed in an unfortunate Cadbury Creme Egg incident.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Life is hard—for everyone—but it’s hell on earth if you’re foolish or weak.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Survival of the fittest is a scientific fact, but it is a cruel ethic; the way of beasts, not a civilized society. Laws can only take us so far, and they must be based upon something—a shared moral code that rises from something. As that moral foundation recedes, so will society’s values.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Religion is our desperate attempt to understand our world. And our past. We live in darkness, surrounded by mysteries. Where did we come from? What is our purpose? What will happen to us after we die? Religion also gives us something more: a code of conduct, a blueprint of right and wrong, a guide to human decency. Just like any other tool, it can be misused.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“She craves genuine things, real people. We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“The human race is the biggest mass murderer of all time. Think about it: we’re hard-coded to survive. Even our ancient ancestors were driven by this impulse, driven enough to recognize the Neanderthals and Hobbits as dangerous enemies. They may have slaughtered dozens of human subspecies. And that legacy shamefully lives on. We attack whatever is different, anything we don’t understand, anything that might change our world, our environment, reduce our chances of survival. Racism, class warfare, sexism, east versus west, north and south, capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorships, Islam and Christianity, Israel and Palestine, they’re all different faces of the same war: the war for a homogeneous human race, an end to our differences. It’s a war we started a long time ago, a war we’ve been fighting ever since. A war that operates in every human mind below the subconscious level, like a computer program, constantly running in the background, guiding us to some eventuality.” Kate didn’t know what to say, couldn’t see how it could involve her trial and her children. “You expect me to believe those two children are involved in an ancient cosmic struggle for the human race?”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“A war that operates in every human mind below the subconscious level, like a computer program, constantly running in the background, guiding us to some eventuality.” Kate”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Passion, rage—no matter how much we evolve, man can’t escape these instincts: our heritage as beasts. We can only hope to control the beast inside us.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“As a beast, he had lived in a world of bliss, acting on his instincts, thinking only when he had to, never seeing himself for what he was, never worrying about his mortality, never trying to cheat death. But now his thoughts and fears ruled him. He knew evil for the first time.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“The piano keys represent the genome. We each get different keys, and the keys don’t change throughout our life: we die with the same piano keys, or genome, we’re born with. What changes is the sheet music: the epigenetics. That sheet of music determines what tune is played—what genes are expressed—and those genes determine our traits—everything from IQ to hair color.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“enough vodka to kill a Russian army.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“The human race is the biggest mass murderer of all time.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“The attacks did two things really well: ensured there was a war, a big one—and crashed the stock market.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“I don’t think a person has to be religious to be moral.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“Passion, rage—no matter how much we evolve, man can’t escape these instincts: our heritage as beasts.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“The West Virginia Children’s Home. It’s in Elkins. See that they get the balance of the account. And that they know that it came from my father.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“This is what you’ve been reading? World War One–era Gone With the Wind?”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
“every human alive today is directly descended from a man who lived in Africa sixty thousand years ago.”
― A.G. Riddle, quote from The Atlantis Gene
A.G. Riddle
Born place: Shelby, NC, The United States
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“Similarly deadly to small wriggling cells, if a bit more quackish, is vanadium, element twenty-three, which also has a curious side effect in males: vanadium is the best spermicide ever devised. Most spermicides dissolve the fatty membrane that surrounds sperm cells, spilling their guts all over. Unfortunately, all cells have fatty membranes, so spermicides often irritate the lining of the vagina and make women susceptible to yeast infections. Not fun. Vanadium eschews any messy dissolving and simply cracks the crankshaft on the sperm’s tails. The tails then snap off, leaving”
― Sam Kean, quote from The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
“Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
― Nikola Tesla, quote from My Inventions
“she saw her husband for the first time: she had married a child whose only talent was an air of engaging helplessness by which he got the protection of certain goodhearted people—”
― Christina Stead, quote from The Man Who Loved Children
“He integrado una delicada maquinaria para averiguar lo que sentiría de ser humano.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Decay of the Angel
“On reflection, falling in love for him was not only extraordinary, but rather comical. By having closely observed Kiyoaki Matsugae, he knew full well what sort of man should fall in love.
Falling in love was a special privilege given to someone whose external, sensuous charm and internal ignorance, disorganization, and lack of cognizance permitted him to form a kind of fantasy about others. It was a rude privilege. Honda was quite aware that since his childhood, he had been the opposite of such a man.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Temple of Dawn
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Tempting the Beast
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Book of Shadows
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