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1 " And I read something else," Jacob goes on. " There was this discussion of the story of Cain and Abel, from the Bible. After Cain kills his brother, God says, 'The bloods of your brother call out to me.' Not blood. Bloods. Weird, right? So the Talmud tries to explain it." " I can explain it," says William. " The scribe was drunk." " William!" cries Jeanne. " The Bible is written by God!" " And copied by scribes," the big boy replies. " Who get drunk. A lot. Trust me." Jacob is laughing. " The rabbis have a different explanation. The Talmud says it's 'bloods' because Cain didn't only spill Abel's blood. He spilled the blood of Abel and all the descendants he never had." " Huh!" " And then it says something like, 'Whoever destroys a single life destroys the whole world. And whoever saves a single life saves the whole world." There are sheep in the meadow beside the road. Gwenforte walks up to the low stone wall, and one sheep--a ram--doesn't run away. They sniff each other's noses. Her white fur beside the ram's wool--two textures, two colors, both called white in our inadequate language. Jeanne is thinking about something. At last, she shares it. " William, you said that it takes a lifetime to make a book." " That's right." " One book? A whole lifetime?" William nods. " A scribe might copy out a single book for years. An illuminator would then take it and work on it for longer still. Not to mention the tanner who made the parchment, and the bookbinder who stitched the book together, and the librarian who worked to get the book for the library and keep it safe from mold and thieves and clumsy monks with ink pots and dirty hands. And some books have authors, too, like Saint Augustine or Rabbi Yehuda. When you think about it, each book is a lot of lives. Dozens and dozens of them." Dozens and dozens of lives," Jeanne says. " And each life a whole world." " We saved five books," says Jacob. " How many worlds is that?" William smiles. " I don't know. A lot. A whole lot. "
2 " It must be that I am not made to be a dead man, but these places and this discussion seem like a dream, and not a dream dreamed by me but by someone else still to be born. "
― Jorge Luis Borges , Dreamtigers
3 " Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world. "
― Nick Harkaway , The Blind Giant
4 " Never underestimate the audacity of the small minded and slightly crapulous.A rather bleezed young neighbour decided to have a grammar battle with me. It lasted all of two seconds.I said something slightly amicable, and he responded with, “You sure that's how you use that word?”I put down my laundry basket and turned to him slowly and deliberately.“Do you really want to have this discussion with me, son, or do you want to go home and rethink your life?”He grumbled and vanished. "
― Michelle Franklin
5 " I must be getting back to my rooms,” Silence said and stood.Mick frowned with displeasure. “Why?”“Because of Mary Darling.”He shrugged. “One o’ the maids is watchin’ her.”“But if Mary wakes she’ll want me.”“Why?” he asked again, biting into a sweetmeat. This discussion wasn’t to his fancy, but sparring with her was.“Because,” she said slowly, looking at him as if he were lack-witted, “she’s only a baby and she loves me.”“Babies,” Mick pronounced, “are a great trouble.”She shook her head, not bothering to reply this time, and started marching to the door. "
― Elizabeth Hoyt , Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane, #3)
6 " We have had this discussion before. You are my son. I love you. I will always love you. But I also love Nell, and if you give her the chance and stop rejecting her advances, she will take you into her heart as well." " Oh, yeah, like he's going to allow me to do that," I muttered "
7 " Four of us,' said Morwen. The cats yowled. 'Yes, I know, and of course you're coming, but you can't carry a bucket of soapy water, so for the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter,' she told them. The cats gave her an affronted look, turned their backs, and began making indignant little noises at each other. "
― Patricia C. Wrede , Searching for Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #2)