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Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen QUOTES

Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen QUOTES

1 " One ought to pretend that there is still hope, in this late season, for astonishment. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

2 " But also: nightmares. The most delicious nightmares, the kind that one has only after the wall between the mundane and the magical is breached directly before one's eyes; nightmares that make you smile as you shiver in your sleep. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

3 " . . . but what they were all waiting for, none could say; nor could one say whether they were all waiting for the same thing, or whether each was waiting for something entirely different. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

4 " . . . calamity comes for every one of us, and assumes the shape that will be sure to hurt us most. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

5 " English gin is a drink for people who think a sin must always be accompanied by its penance. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

6 " But here is what you need to understand - here is why you are in danger. Here is why you must speak, and why you must not allow us to speak for you. Because history is an act of continuous collective imagining, and the perception of truth is a constant, unending negotiation, with others, and with oneself when one is alone. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

7 " I cannot say that I wonder if I did the right thing, because whichever version of the world I chose to live in, the acts would alter themselves so that I did. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

8 " I cannot say that I wonder if I did the right thing, because whichever version of the world I chose to live in, the facts would alter themselves so that I did. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

9 " But I think - and I say this not to salve my own feelings, but because I have truly come to believe it - that something more complex goes on in the mind of those who we say are "fooled". That there is an additional self-deception, a self victimization. The dupe become both robber and robbed, both living in the same mind, the one constantly deceiving the other.
Because something profound must happen in the mind to convince a man to distrust the common sense acquired over decades, not just once, but continuously. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

10 " I sometimes consider that the only difference between a hoax and an article of faith is the number of people who profess belief in it. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

11 " Here is why you must speak, and why you must not allow us to speak for you. Because history is an act of continuous collective imagining, and the perception of truth is a constant, unending negotiation, with others, and with oneself when one is alone. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

12 " [...] he had found in the past that gathering too many intellectuals in the same room tended to aggravate all their myriad insecurities, and turn discourse into combat. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

13 " It was undeniably wonderful to witness an acknowledgment of the power that lay in your mind and in your hands, from someone who did not hold that power. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

14 " She was not a victim, for being a victim entails activities and duties that she felt no obligation to perform. It means that people who come across you in the street will look at with pity in their eyes, and smug thankfulness in their own good fortune will lie behind that pity. In the moment they will conveniently forget their own secret tragedies; they will not realize that they are no more fortunate than you are, that calamity comes for every one of us, and assumes the shape that will be sure to hurt us most. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

15 " And I will tell you this about God--that despite his presumed omnipresence he often arrives in the company of men; that men fear to interpret the world on their own authority when they are aware of his presence, because his senses are complete and perfect and his experiences are unlimited; that the standards for proof are much higher when God is involved, especially proof of life, or of what goes on inside a woman's body; that weighed against God's displeasure, or against a man's feeling that God is displeased by his actions, the life of one woman is no great thing. "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

16 " The truth of the matter. Is it a thing that exists outside of our minds, waiting for us to perceive it and know it as true? Or is truth a thing that collectively resides within the minds of all men, a matter of consensus, subject to debate, subject to alteration? The world outside our minds neither true nor false, but merely there? "

― Dexter Palmer , Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen