The Atlas Paradox

To know what people really are and not destroy them is savagely remarkable. She has exceptional restraint.

One thing at a time. Murder first and then scholarly pursuits.

The presumption that she was in pieces just because she had once been broken was a dangerous one

Karma was routinely misrepresented as the scales of justice when really, it was a matter of eternal continuity.

Do you think they know what it means to love?" his projection-self mused aloud to him. "That it isn't the simple joy of fondness, I mean. In fact it's violent, destructive. It means to cut the heart out of your chest and give it to someone else.

Olympus was empty. The gods were already here.

This was just the world. You trusted people, you loved them, you offered them the dignity of your time and the intimacy of your thoughts and the fraility of your hope and they either accepted it and cared for it or they rejected it and destroyed it and in the end, none of it was up to you. This was just what you got. Heartbreak was inevitable. Disappointment assured.

We can’t help clinging to our origins, Callum said. The past always seems more ordered, Rhodes. It always seems clearer, more straightforward, easier to understand. We have a craving for it, that sense of simplicity, but only an idiot would ever chase the past, because our perception of it is false—it was never that the world was simple. Just that in retrospect it could be known, and therefore understood.

People always craved power - that was a constant of humanity, a truer rule than any law of physics. If they weren't given power, they took it. And however lofty and moral their foundational creed, people historically did not choose to give it away.

Are you losing your mind?” “Yes,” Parisa replied with a roll of her eyes. “I’m succumbing to madness, thanks. And you?” “Making progress.

When you no longer exist, you will have left nothing behind.

The moment you let yourself love, Reina Mori, it will be the death of you. I promise you that.

No, Nico, I would have lit on fire anyone with even the slightest intention of harming you, and that is the kind of friend I am, when I choose to be a friend.

Most people would assume Gideon was a pessimist because hello, look at the obvious (everything fucking sucked) but actually he wasn’t, because he enjoyed being alive. He loved being awake. He missed being awake.

Like maybe he could ask her something silly and trifling, like if she’d ever looked at the moon and felt empty or if she knew how it felt to set foot in a country with a language she didn’t speak, and she wouldn’t have to tell him the answer, because he would just know it. He would just know.

You have a problem,” Parisa observed, arching a brow. “Nonsense. I have a hobby,” said Callum. “It’s everyone else who has a problem.

If power is a thing to be had, it must be capable of possession. But power is not any discrete size or weight. Power is continuous. Power is parabolic. Say you are given some power, which then increases your capacity to accumulate more power. Your capacity for power increases exponentially in relation to the actual power you have gained. Thus, to gain power is to be increasingly powerless. If the more power one has, the less one has, then is it the thing or are you?

To feel the feelings of someone else is to exhaust yourself with double the pain,

Nobody asked for any of this. What they're born into. We just get what we get and that's a tragedy in itself. Everybody's got one.

The actionable items were intangible (no, Belen said repeatedly, actually it was very simple, all you had to do was hold corporations responsible for their emissions, but for whatever reason her voice seemed to get drowned out by something, usually heartwarming ads where oil was being cleaned off of ducks with Very Effective dish soap). And also, they noted with importance, where were they supposed to get the money? Belen said wealth tax, and the wealthy said hm sorry what?

You know, being routinely accused of psychopathy is starting to get on my nerves,” Parisa said dryly.

He was so British she could spread him on a crumpet.

I believed the universe was completely random, and that's what eluded us. Because we all want to believe we are fundamental in some way. We are our own myths, our own legends. We give things reason. We are reasonable creatures and so everything must have its place, its purpose — but we are also egoistical creatures, and so we give ourselves reasons that don't exist.

This time, she would close her eyes. She would inhale deeply. She would do what she had done before but this time she would not let herself fail, because she was no longer frightened. She was no longer aching. She was no longer desperate for the crutch of someone else’s faith.

I see. And what can I do for you, Professor?” “Die,” she said. “Slowly. Painfully.” “Understandable,” said Atlas.

They had shared something that couldn't be undone-something that had followed them around, joining them even in their absences form each other. History did that to people. Proximity. Love in some cases, hatred in others. The specific kind of intimacy that meant that every enemy was once a friend.

Everything was related. This was what nobody seemed to understand. That although some corn-fed family in Iowa might not feel the loss of the Philippines now, they would someday, they would have to, because ecosystems were connected, because life mattered, because nothing in this world could disappear without a trace

She had the air of someone who had seen a lot and decided to simply close her eyes and stop looking.

(If you do not know precisely where impossibility begins and ends, then of course it cannot constrain you.)

Because Tristan would rather have whatever version of Libby she had become than face the prospect of having no Libby at all.