The Book of Koli

I don't like people very much. I'm all in favour of them as a concept, but I don't get on with them at all when I have to mix with them.

Tomorrow would do, I thought. And like most people who think that, I was dead wrong. There’s only ever one day that matters, and it moves along with you.

It never stops amazing me how a story can deliver you out of your own self, even in the worst of times.

I just read a list of the hundred things you should do before you die. I was kind of surprised to see that shouting for help wasn’t in there.

life is nothing but change, even when it seems to stand still.

Well, there’s something called the law of unintended consequences. I don’t think it’s really a law, but people do a lot of things that seem smart at the time and then turn out to be terrible mistakes.

I learned since then, and paid a price to learn, it that them as laid claim to great wisdom most often got nothing in their store but bare scrapings. And by the same token, them as think they're ignorant think it because they can see the edges of what they know, which you can only see when what you know is tall enough to stand on, and take a look around.

I know this much though: anyone who talks about the right way to live, as if there was only just the one, is blind in one eye or maybe both and is not worth listening to.

there’s other things that only come to make sense a long time after they’re done with.

I heard her say once that though many a man was worth a tumble, there wasn't one in a hundred was worth living with

Judging is what them that listen does for them that tell, whether it’s wanted or not. But the truth is I don’t

And what you got to do when the future comes is open your arms to it. For that’s where life is, and if you look for it anywhere else, you’re gonna come home empty-handed.

Some things come on you too fast for you to understand them when they’re happening. And when you try to understand them afterwards you put them together any way you can, but you get it wrong.

them as lay claim to great wisdom most often got nothing in their store but bare scrapings. And by the same token, them as think they’re ignorant think it because they can see the edges of what they know, which you can only see when what you know is tall enough to stand on and take a look around.

I learned since then, and paid a price to learn it, that them as lay claim to great wisdom most often got nothing in their store but bare scrapings. And by the same token, them as think they’re ignorant think it because they can see the edges of what they know, which you can only see when what you know is tall enough to stand on and take a look around.

She didn’t say knowed, she said known, just like she’d said chamber instead of room. It was how they said those things in the old times, and it made her words seem heavier somehow. Like they was hard, solid things and kept right on standing there in the air after she was done saying them.

It was a sweet apology, and furthermore I seen now how Spinner did the thing with the knife and the fork to turn Haijon’s thoughts away from the hurt she done him. I admired her cleverness in that, which was not a sly cleverness but a thoughtful and a gentle one. That Spinner could be gentle or fierce by turns whenever there was need for one or for the other was part of who she was, and part of why I loved her.

But whenever someone talks to you

Monono played me songs too, choosing mostly metal since it’s the kind of music that raises up your spirits.

A tune blasted out, filling the gather-ground with its sound. There was words to it: a man telling a woman that he was never going to give her up, or let her down, or run around, or hurt her.

Sometimes crying makes a sad thing better, but oftentimes it only pushes the sadness harder into you.

Dreams, even, got their weight. Dreams most of all, maybe. For me, it seems dreams was the hardest to carry, even when they was sweet ones.

There’s only ever one day that matters, and it moves along with you.

People will do what they got to do to be together. But it's the being together that matters more than the rules or the place.