Quotes from Think of a Number

“The worst pain in our lives comes from the mistakes we refuse to acknowledge--the things we've done that are so our of harmony with who we are that we can't bear to look at them.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The person I think I am is terrified of the person I really am, terrified of what others would think of that person. What would they do to me if they knew the person I really was? Better to be safe! Better to hide the real person, starve the real person, bury the real person!”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“What he took he will give, when he gets what he gave.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“For her, people in general were a plus, a source of positive stimulation (with exceptions such as the predatory Sonya Reynolds). For Gurney, people in general were a minus, a drain on his energy (with exception such as the encouraging Sonya Reynolds).”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“It was a curious thing about the past--how it lay in wait for you, quietly, invisibly, almost as though it weren't there. You might be tempted to think it was gone, no longer existed. Then, like a pheasant flushed from cover, it would roar up in an explosion of sound, color, motion--shockingly alive.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The purpose of life is to get as close as we can to other people.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Eis uma coisa curiosa acerca do passado: a forma como jaz à nossa espera, silencioso, invisível, quase como se ali não estivesse. Podemos ter a tentação de julgar que desapareceu, que já não existe. De repente, como um faisão espantado para fora do seu esconderijo, erguer-se-á numa explosão de som, cor e movimento: escandalosamente vivo.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we’re wrong we fight the hardest to prove we’re right.” Caught”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Hardwick was showing the frustration of a man trying to hold his groceries inside a ripped bag.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“No hay peor dolor que tener a dos personas viviendo en un cuerpo”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“El conflicto más simple es el conflicto entre la forma en que nos vemos nosotros mismos y la forma en que nos ven los demás. Por ejemplo, si estamos discutiendo y tú me gritas, vería la causa en tu incapacidad de controlar tu temperamento. En cambio, si yo te grito a ti, no veré la causa en mi temperamento, sino en tu provocación, algo en ti frente a lo cual mi grito es una respuesta apropiada.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“How many bright angels can dance on a pin? How many hopes drown in a bottle of gin? Did the thought ever come that your glass was a gun and one day you’d wonder, God, what have I done?”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“But how could he stop being what he was? However much he cared for her, however much he wanted to be with her, however much he wanted her to be happy, how could he become someone he wasn't?”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Sherlock Holmes, "İmkansız olanı elerseniz,elimizde kalan ne kadar mümkün görünmese de doğrudur," derdi.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“That boulder is your image of yourself, who you think you are. The person you think you are is keeping the person you really are locked up without light or food or friends. The person you think you are has been trying to murder the person you really are for as long as you both have lived.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“So what are you saying?” Gurney”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The personal collisions that upset us the most, the ones we seem powerless to let go of, are those in which we played a role that we are unwilling to acknowledge. That’s why the pain lasts—because we refuse to look at its source. We cannot detach it, because we refuse to look at the point of attachment.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“We each seem to be wired to believe my situation causes my problems but your personality causes yours. This creates trouble.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“El problema con los ojos radicaba en que éstos, más que ninguna otra de las facciones de la cara, captaban la tensión, la contradicción: la indiferencia reservada, salpicada con una pizca de crueldad, que Gurney había discernido con frecuencia en los rostros de los asesinos con los que había tenido la oportunidad de pasar a tiempo a solas.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The fact that no one was dead persuaded him that he was on the right track”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Eso es lo que tiene el alcohol: cuando te emborrachas tanto como lo hice yo, pierdes el miedo a las consecuencias. Tu percepción se deforma, tus inhibiciones desaparecen, tu memoria se apaga, y actúas por impulso: instinto sin control.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“En esos sueños veía con una claridad que superaba las palabras que el pozo de tristeza era pérdida, y la mayor pérdida de todas era la pérdida de amor.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we’re wrong we fight the hardest to prove we’re right.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“La mente es una masa de contradicciones y conflictos. Mentimos para conseguir que otros confíen en nosotros. Escondemos nuestro verdadero ser en una persecución de la intimidad. Perseguimos la felicidad de formas que nos alejan de ella. Cuando nos equivocamos, luchamos a brazo partido por demostrar que tenemos razón.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Darás lo que has quitado
al recibir lo dado.
Sé todo lo que piensas
sé cuando parpadeas
sé dónde has estado
sé adónde irán tus pasos.
Vamos a vernos solos
señor 658.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Gurney se maravillaba de que una persona tan espontánea pudiera también llevar una vida tan regida por los principios. Era lo que la hacía ser como era. Era lo que la convertía en un faro en el cenagal de su propia existencia.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“La atención de Sonya era agradable, gratificante para el ego, incluso quizás un poco excitante, pero conllevaba un precio excesivamente alto, era demasiado peligrosa para cosas que importaban más.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

“Madeleine, la luz que casi había perdido. La luz que había puesto en peligro.”
― John Verdon, quote from Think of a Number

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“In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x squared + px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where x squared + px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Purloined Letter

“I think that once you're born, the thing you have to do is find out who you are and live that life as well as you can. You can't spend your time wondering how things would have been if you were someone different.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn

“The rhythm built up, high resonant notes from the buzzing xylophone, the off-scale dipping warble of the flute, the eerie, strangely primeval bass of the synthesizer.
The others punctuated the music with claps and sudden piercing shrieks from behind their veils. Suddenly one began to sing in Tamashek.
"He sings about his synthesizer," Gresham murmured.
"What does he say?"

I humbly adore the acts of the Most High,
Who has given to the synthesizer what is better than a soul.
So that, when it plays, the men are silent,
And their hands cover their veils to hide their emotions.
The troubles of life were pushing me into the tomb,
But thanks to the synthesizer,
God has given me back my life.”
― Bruce Sterling, quote from Islands in the Net

“Ginseng hunters refer to the plant as chang-diang shen, “the root of lightning,” because it is believed that it appears only on the spot where a small mountain spring has been dried up by a lightning bolt. After a life of three hundred years the green juice turns white and the plant acquires a soul. It is then able to take on human form, but it never becomes truly human because ginseng does not know the meaning of selfishness.”
― Barry Hughart, quote from The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

“Let me tell you the tale of a poet who hanged himself with promises. . . .”
― C.S. Friedman, quote from In Conquest Born

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