“We was half stupid, a third lucky, and three-quarters ferocious.”
― Charlie Higson, quote from The Sacrifice
“Ed held his sword tight in both hands and went slowly and carefully down. There was the unmistakable smell of sicko down here and Ed’s throat was very dry.”
― Charlie Higson, quote from The Sacrifice
“Sod this,’ said Kyle and he swung his axe. Charlotte watched amazed, unable to look away, as the blade sliced clean through the father’s neck and his head flew off.”
― Charlie Higson, quote from The Sacrifice
“Then there was David, lording it up at Buckingham Palace, thinking he was king of the shit heap. That guy was definitely nuts, like every dictator that had gone before him. Nero, Caligula, Henry the Eighth, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Margaret Thatcher, Colonel Gaddafi, that crazy North Korean bastard who was in Team America, Kim Jong whatever.”
― Charlie Higson, quote from The Sacrifice
“He turned to see three kids at his side. Tish and the two little boys. He had to admit the boys looked pretty normal to him — apart from the fact that they were both laden down with armour and weapons, and the dark harked one appeared to be wearing a dress, like they were on their way to a fancy-dress party.”
― Charlie Higson, quote from The Sacrifice
“Belén shrugs. "It's a perfect plan."
"As easy as falling in love," Mara adds.
"Foolproof," Hector agrees.
I don't deserve such friends. I blink against the sting of threatening tears and say, "All you Joyans are filthy liars.”
― Rae Carson, quote from The Bitter Kingdom
“Remember, my boy, I never fight for the pleasure of wielding weapons. War, for me, is simply politics by other means.”
― Valerio Massimo Manfredi, quote from Alexander: Child of a Dream
“When they do, I reach up, laying my hand on his cheek. Our kisses turn heated. My legs squeeze Honey Badger’s sides, causing him to trot ahead next to Wayra. When Trey notices, he has to rein in our spix, breaking our kiss. We both look over at Wayra, who is smirking at us. He nods his head in greeting to Trey. “Sir.” Trey nods back. “Wayra.”“Did you need something, sir?” Wayra asks with amusement in his tone. “No. I have everything I need,” he replies. “Carry on.” Trey pulls us back behind Wayra once more.
Bartol, Amy A. (2015-03-31). Sea of Stars (The Kricket Series Book 2) (pp. 241-242). 47North. Kindle Edition.”
― Amy A. Bartol, quote from Sea of Stars
“A život je niz trenutaka i ti su trenuci u vječnoj mijeni, baš kao i misli, negativne i pozitivne. I premda je potreba za mozganjem u ljudskoj prirodi, ona je besmislena kao toliko naših urođenih poriva. Besmisleno je dopustiti jednoj misli da nam zaposjedne um, jer misli su kao gosti ili nevjerni prijatelji. Mogu otići jednako brzo kako su i došle, a čak i one kojima je najduže trebalo da se rode mogu iščeznuti u trenu. Trenuci su, naprotiv, dragocjeni; katkad traju, a katkad prolete, ali možeš ih koječime ispuniti: možeš se predomisliti, možeš spasiti život, a možeš se i zaljubiti.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from How to Fall in Love
“Like any overt school of mysticism, a movement seeking to achieve a vicious goal has to invoke the higher mysteries of an incomprehensible authority. An unread and unreadable book serves this purpose. It does not count on men’s intelligence, but on their weaknesses, pretensions and fears. It is not a tool of enlightenment, but of intellectual intimidation. It is not aimed at the reader’s understanding, but at his inferiority complex.
An intelligent man will reject such a book with contemptuous indignation, refusing to waste his time on untangling what he perceives to be gibberish—which is part of the book’s technique: the man able to refute its arguments will not (unless he has the endurance of an elephant and the patience of a martyr). A young man of average intelligence—particularly a student of philosophy or of political science—under a barrage of authoritative pronouncements acclaiming the book as “scholarly,” “significant,” “profound,” will take the blame for his failure to understand. More often than not, he will assume that the book’s theory has been scientifically proved and that he alone is unable to grasp it; anxious, above all, to hide his inability, he will profess agreement, and the less his understanding, the louder his agreement—while the rest of the class are going through the same mental process. Most of them will accept the book’s doctrine, reluctantly and uneasily, and lose their intellectual integrity, condemning themselves to a chronic fog of approximation, uncertainty, self doubt. Some will give up the intellect (particularly philosophy) and turn belligerently into “pragmatic,” anti-intellectual Babbitts. A few will see through the game and scramble eagerly for the driver’s seat on the bandwagon, grasping the possibilities of a road to the mentally unearned.
Within a few years of the book’s publication, commentators will begin to fill libraries with works analyzing, “clarifying” and interpreting its mysteries. Their notions will spread all over the academic map, ranging from the appeasers, who will try to soften the book’s meaning—to the glamorizers, who will ascribe to it nothing worse than their own pet inanities—to the compromisers, who will try to reconcile its theory with its exact opposite—to the avant-garde, who will spell out and demand the acceptance of its logical consequences. The contradictory, antithetical nature of such interpretations will be ascribed to the book’s profundity—particularly by those who function on the motto: “If I don’t understand it, it’s deep.” The students will believe that the professors know the proof of the book’s theory, the professors will believe that the commentators know it, the commentators will believe that the author knows it—and the author will be alone to know that no proof exists and that none was offered.
Within a generation, the number of commentaries will have grown to such proportions that the original book will be accepted as a subject of philosophical specialization, requiring a lifetime of study—and any refutation of the book’s theory will be ignored or rejected, if unaccompanied by a full discussion of the theories of all the commentators, a task which no one will be able to undertake.
This is the process by which Kant and Hegel acquired their dominance. Many professors of philosophy today have no idea of what Kant actually said. And no one has ever read Hegel (even though many have looked at every word on his every page).”
― Ayn Rand, quote from Philosophy: Who Needs It
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