“Simon called you 'Machiavelli disguised as a debutante.'" "Gosh," I said, not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,' I said, sighing.
'Is it?' said Veronica, looking surprised. 'Universally acknowledged? Surely that presupposes life similar to human societies beyond this planet, and besides--'
'No, no, it's a quote from ... Never mind,' I said.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“Do you know what it is?' [Toby] said thoughtfully. 'It's that they haven't had anything really awful happen to them. No wonder they seem so superficial and unfeeling.'
It was certainly an interesting theory, ... [but] surely one didn't need to have suffered in order to possess empathy for those who had? All it required was a bit of imagination and a well-stocked library.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“I wondered whether mad people would be better off if their memories could be neatened up, or taken off the shelves on which they were stored and replaced with nicer ones, and if they'd be the same person then, or completely different ones, and whether dreams were like a vandal rampaging through a library of memories, tearing out random pages and turning them into paper boats...”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“Sometimes I think Life is best summed up as
(a) Awful Bits
and
)b) This That Successfully Distract One from the Awful Bits”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“People are beautiful when they do beautiful things.”
― Joseph Fink, quote from Welcome to Night Vale
“Just answer me this, will you? You said you were going to dispose of me. How are you planning to do it?"
Master John finished the last thin delicious slice of his pear in a leisurely manner.
"I can't tell you," he replied. "That isn't altogether for me to decide. There are various ways to dispose of you. Some you may have thought of already. Others will no doubt occur to you.”
― Elizabeth Marie Pope, quote from The Perilous Gard
“that Faunita couldn’t see or hear for three days. In the FLDS culture, a man’s wife is his property and he can do whatever he wants to do to her. If a woman complains about violence or abuse, everyone turns on her. The assumption is that she’s disobedient. It’s always her fault. It’s a huge disgrace if your husband beats you. So women rarely speak about abuse because once they do, they’re considered rebellious.”
― Carolyn Jessop, quote from Escape
“If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
“(...) You Sophotechs are smarter than I am; why did you let me do such a foolish thing?”
“We answer every question our resources and instruction parameters allow; we are more than happy to advise you, when and if we are asked.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking of, and you know it.”
“You are thinking we should use force to defend you against yourself against your will? That is hardly a thought worth thinking, sir. Your life has exactly the value you yourself place on it. It is yours to damage or ruin as you wish.”
(...)
“Is that another hint? Are you saying I’m destroying my life? People at the party, twice now, have said or implied that I’m going to endanger the Oecumene itself. Who stopped me?”
“Not I. While life continues, it cannot be made to be without risk. The assessment of whether or not a certain risk is worth taking depends on subjective value-judgments. About such judgments even reasonable men can differ. We Sophotechs will not interfere with such decisions. (...) If we were to overrule your ownership of your own life, your life, would, in effect, become our property, and you, in effect, would become merely the custodian or trustee of that life. Do you think you would value it more in such a case, or less? And if you valued it less, would you not take greater risks and behave more self-destructively? If, on the other hand, each man’s life is his own, he may experiment freely, risking only what is his, till he find his best happiness.”
“I see the results of failed experiments all around us, in these cylinders. I see wasted lives, and people trapped in mind sets and life forms which lead nowhere.”
“While life continues, experimentation and evolution must also. The pain and risk of failure cannot be eliminated. The most we can do is maximize human freedom, so that no man is forced to pay for another man’s mistakes, so that the pain of failure falls only on he who risks it. And you do not know which ways of life lead nowhere. Even we Sophotechs do not know where all paths lead.”
“How benevolent of you! We will always be free to be stupid.”
“Cherish that freedom, young master; it is basic to all others.”
― quote from The Golden Age
All Our Yesterdays
Princess in Pink
Possessing the Secre...
Wish You Were Dead
Make Lemonade
Tropic of CapricornBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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