Home > Work > The Hod King (The Books of Babel, #3)
1 " But if I refused to engage anyone who I found the least bit detestable, corrupt, or stupid, I'd never work with anyone. Nothing would get done. The inability to compromise isn't a sign of moral rectitude"-- she spoke the phrase with haughty emphasis--"it's a sign of immaturity. You know who can't be bargained with? Little children and madmen."(Edith) "
― Josiah Bancroft, , The Hod King (The Books of Babel, #3)
2 " All I know is that, at the end of the day, dreams don't matter, but neither does regret. We aren't what we want or wish for. We are only what we do. "
― , The Hod King (The Books of Babel, #3)
3 " The rich “learn lessons.” The poor commit crimes. “Mistakes” are generally considered a mark of the middle class. "
4 " My sense of being, my identity, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't reside in my parts. It lives in my past, and in the continuity of my present thoughts, and in my hopes for the future. I'm more afraid of losing a memory than a limb. "
5 " Sometimes a wheel squeaks not because it is faulty but because it bears the most weight. "
6 " The universe breathes in ragged breaths. The body dies. The fungus grows. The loam spreads. The tree roots. The forest burns. The cloud bursts. The flood drowns. The alluvium feeds the fields. In, out. In, out. There is no stasis, no stillness. The source of all misery lies in our insistence that tomorrow be like today. But if it were, if it ever were, it would spell the end of everything. "
7 " The mob does two things well: nothing and revolution. "
8 " Don’t saw off your arm to feed a dog. You only have two arms, and the world is full of dogs. "
9 " The only event I'm certain to attend is my funeral, and I hope to arrive very, very late. "
10 " Only people who go to bed early believe in happy endings. We night owls understand that happiness does not dwell in finales. It resides in anticipation, in revelry, and in worn-out welcomes. Endings are always sad. "
11 " An earnest failure is superior to immaculate potential. "
12 " She is imperfect, but absolutely peerless. "
13 " The wonderful thing about regrets is that it's never too late to have them. "
14 " We cannot raise a man up by lowering ourselves, no more than we can save a sunken ship by draining away the sea. "
15 " Memory is not like a box of stationery—easy to browse, reorder, and read. No, memories accumulate like leaves upon the forest floor. They are irregular and fragile. They crumble and break upon inspection. They turn to soil the deeper you go. "
16 " But Senlin knew that while tyrants had many strengths, their weakness was generally the same. They were gullible. For the tyrant, there were no reigning facts, no universal systems of inquiry, no demonstrable truths. Because they preferred their own rationalization to reason, their dogma to discourse, the main means a tyrant had for testing another man’s integrity and loyalty were oaths and intuition. But since the tyrants had no choice but to teach everyone exactly what they wished to hear, they were simple to pander to and easy to fool. "
17 " A man may rot like an egg: His shell does not show it, but all that is within him has gone foul. "
18 " If I ever get to the point where I can stand idly by while a child falls to his death, I don't think I can claim to have priorities of any kind. "
19 " The rich “learn lessons.” The poor commit crimes. “Mistakes” are generally "
20 " At the round table of color, orange sits supreme. Orange is sublime. Orange is ablaze. And seated across from Lady Orange, we have Sir Purple. I ask you, is any color more vulgar? The word alone emerges like something from a lavatory. Purple. Plopple. It’s all prunes, liver spots, and ink stains. If I ever utter a word of praise for that wretched hue, please snatch my pen away and gore me with it. "
