Quotes from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Reading is human contact, and the range of our human contacts is what makes us what we are. Just imagine you live the life of a long-distance truck driver. The books that you read are like the travelers you take into your cab. If you give lifts to people who are cultured and profound, you'll learn a lot from them. If you pick up fools, you'll turn into a fool yourself.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“There's a scientific hypothesis that every person's name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, because society only needs a limited number of human types. Just a few models of worker and warrior ants, if I could put it like that. And everybody's psyche is preprogrammed at a basic level by the associative semantic fields that their first name and surname activate.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that names are the only things that exist in the world. Maybe that's true, but the problem is that as time passes by, names do not remain the same - even if they don't change.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“I had a dreary, depressed feeling so deep in my soul that I was almost ready to believe I had one.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“But the most terrible thing was that the shame didn't simply sear my heart, it also mingled into a single whole with the pleasure I was getting from what was going on.

It was something quite unimaginable - truly beyond good and evil. It was then that I finally understood the fatal abysses trodden by De Sade and Sacher-Masoch, who I had always thought absurdly pompous. No, they weren't absurd at all - they simply hadn't been able to find the right words to convey the true nature of their nightmares. And I knew why - there were no such words in any human language.

'Stop,' I whispered through my tears.

But in heart I didn't know what I wanted - for him to stop or to carry on.

I couldn't hold back any longer and I started crying. But they were tears of pleasure, a monstrous, shameful pleasure that was too enthralling to be abandoned voluntarily.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“А если в клиенте проснется самое высокое, мы потеряем клиента, это знает любой маркетолог.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“красавицы одной эпохи часто вызывают у другой недоумение.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Because from the first line I can tell how many hours the mule was carrying it up his ass on the way from Colombo to Minsk. And that's nothing, I can know how many times that ass of his was...”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“— Когда они займутся тем, в чем они понимают, они перестанут рассуждать о том, чего не понимают.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Считается, если бросить палку собаке, она будет глядеть на эту палку. А если бросить палку льву, то он будет, не отрываясь, смотреть на кидающего. Это формальная фраза, которую говорили во время диспутов в древнем Китае, если собеседник начинал цепляться за слова и переставал видеть главное.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Собака смотрит на палку, а лев — на того, кто ее кинул. Кстати, когда это понимаешь, становится намного легче читать нашу прессу…”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“We're taking a ride down the Kashirksy Highway”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

“Democracy, liberalism--those are just words on a signpost, she was right about that. But the reality is more like the microflora in your guts. In the West, all your microbes balance each other out, it's taken centuries for you to reach that stage. They all quietly get on with generating hydrogen sulphide and keep their mouths shut. Everything's fine-tuned, like a watch, the total balance and self-regulation of the digestive system, and above it--the corporate media, moistening it all with fresh saliva every day. That kind of organism is called the open society--why the hell should it close down, it can close down anyone else it wants with a couple of air strikes. The question is, how do you arrive at this condition? What they taught us to do was to swallow salmonella with no antibodies to fight it, or other microbes to keep it in check at all. Not surprisingly we developed such a bad case of diarrhea that three hundred billion bucks had drained out before we even began to understand what was going on.”
― Victor Pelevin, quote from The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

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“You worthless excuse for a dung dealer. (Stryder)”
― Kinley MacGregor, quote from A Dark Champion

“There are pieces to the puzzle missing,' Camas said. He was tugging his hair; his eyes glowed eerily in the red light from a stained-glass lamp. 'And pieces that don't yet fit. What, for instance, precipitates the shift from city to shadow city? Is it sorcery? Has it to do with the precarious state of affairs in the House of Greve? The powerless heir, the bastard who cannot act? What secrets are hidden within the secret palace? What is there to gain by anticipating and surviving the shift? Domina Pearl believes that it is possible, if one can remain aware during the transformation, to amass enormous knowledge and power. To rule the shadow city when it emerges, since no one else will remember the previous city, and who ruled then. All will be accepted as it is revealed. All of which is why I am so eager to speak with you. You live in Ombria's past, its ghosts and memories. How far back do you remember? Were you alive before the previous shift? How many transformations have there been? Many? One? None at all? How old are you?'
The illusion of Faey inclined her head gracefully; Camas continued without listening for answers. Faey spoke then, her voice sliding within, beneath his words. 'What do you expect to gain form what you call the transformation?'
Camas interrupted his own sentence with a word. 'Enlightenment. And the power that comes with an unbroken memory of the history of the city. Domina Pearl's knowledge of sorcery may not survive the transformation if she herself is not aware of the shift. I want to stay alive, be aware of the shift form city to shadow, and I will ally myself and my abilities to anyone powerful enough to maintain the integrity of existence, knowledge, memory and experience through the transformation.'
'Such as Domina Pearl?' the sorceress suggested. She kept her voice light, careless, but her eyes were very dark.
'Domina Pearl,' Camas agreed. 'Or you. Or perhaps even Ducon. He is another puzzle piece, I think. He is drawn to the hidden palace, and to the odd, unnoticed places in Ombria where the boundaries are visible between the city and its shadow. He draws them constantly.'
'So you would pledge your loyalty to him or betray him, depending on the moment?'
'Or her. Or you,' Camas answered, nodding briskly. Mag stared at him with wonder. 'Exactly. Depending on the moment.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, quote from Ombria in Shadow

“Long-haired Chihuahuas have no notion they are bite-sized.”
― Rosemary Clement-Moore, quote from The Splendor Falls

“Love is the law of life," broke in Leo; "without love there is no life. I seek love that I may live. I believe that all these things are ordained to an end which we do not know. Fate draws me on—I fulfil my fate——”
― H. Rider Haggard, quote from Ayesha: The Return of She

“And is this not the very reason for the establishment of the State? If there were cause and reason for confidence among individuals, the State would never have come into existence. The sacred and essential foundation for the State is our mutual and well-founded suspicion of each other. Anyone questioning this foundation throws suspicion upon the State.”
― Karin Boye, quote from Kallocain

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