Home > Work > The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán
1 " I am no philosopher, but I know this. Your religions cause wars and prevent marriages. There will be no peace on earth until every synagogue, every mosque, every church, and every temple is razed to the ground or made into a barn, and when that happens, no one will be happier than the Lord God Himself. "
― Louis de Bernières , The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán
2 " Monogamy was an invention of men who wished to reduce the power of women over them. "
3 " Luisa pointed up at the crucifix on the wall and asked, 'Do you believe in all that?' 'I would like to,' he replied, 'but it is too difficult.' She nodded in agreement and said, 'If the person hanging on it were a woman, then I would believe it. "
4 " I have often thought about this, and I have come to the conclusion that everything that I am is owed to you. You were like a gun that fired me a long way off, but the aim was yours. If you are proud of me it is because your aim was true.” The General smiled. “I could have trusted you to come up with a metaphor that I would have understood. Did you know that a shell when it comes out of the barrel wobbles badly for the first part of its trajectory? And then it settles to a perfect arc? Perhaps your behavior when you were younger was your way of wobbling. "
5 " Snakes are habitually parsimonious with their poison; they parcel it out carefully, innoculating their victims with just the right amount to paralyse them and begin the process of predigestion. Animals that they intend merely to scare away do not normally receive much venom at all, or just enough to make them more careful in the future. If snakes were humans they would be the kind of people who save up small coins and put them into investment accounts, eat chocolates only after lunch on Sundays, beleive in swift corporal punishment to deter criminals, are sceptical about the value of social services, and give pocket handkerchiefs for Christmas presents. "