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Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2) QUOTES

Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2) QUOTES

1 " We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

2 " It is not cynical to admit the past has been turned into a fiction. It is a story, not a fact. The real has been erased. Whole eras have been added or removed. Wars have been aggrandized, and human struggle relegated to the margins. Villains are redressed as heroes. Generous, striving, imperfect men and women have been stripped of their flaws or plucked of their virtues and turned into figurines of morality or depravity. Whole societies have been fixed with motive and visions and equanimity where there was none. Suffering has been recast as noble sacrifice! Do you know why the history of the Tower is in such turmoil? Because too many powerful men are fighting for the pen, fighting to write their story over our dead bodies. They know what is at stake: immortality, the character of civilization, and influence beyond the ages. They are fighting to see who gets to mislead our grandchildren. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

3 " But what was excruciating at first turned cathartic the more he talked. In telling his story, he discovered that he had developed definite ideas about his own motives and decisions. These ideas seemed to have formed in the ether of emotions and dreams, that wooly fog that lay outside the footlights of the conscious mind. They were not large revelations, but were rather like the little epiphanies one suffers and enjoys over a morning cup of tea. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

4 " Routine is rather like the egg whites in a batter: It imparts little flavor, but it holds everything together. "

― Josiah Bancroft, , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

5 " The man or woman who is rarely lost, rarely discovers anything new. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

6 " It is not cynical to admit that the past has been turned into a fiction. It is a story, not a fact. The real has been erased. Whole eras have been added and removed. Wars have been aggrandized, and human struggle relegated to the margins. Villains are redressed as heroes. Generous, striving, imperfect men and women have been stripped of their flaws or plucked of their virtues and turned into figurines of morality or depravity. Whole societies have been fixed with motive and vision and equanimity where there was none. Suffering has been recast as noble sacrifice! "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

7 " History is a love letter to tyrants written in the blood of the overrun, the forgotten, the expunged! "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

8 " The essential lesson of the zoetrope is this: movement, indeed all progress, even the passage of time, is an illusion. Life is the repetition of stillness. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

9 " The tradition among libraries of boasting about the number of volumes in their collection is well established, but surely, it is not aggregation that makes a library; it is dissemination. Perhaps libraries should bang on about how many volumes are on loan, are presently off crowding nightstands, and circulating through piles on the mantel, and weighing down purses. Yes, it is somewhat vexing to thread through the stacks of a library, only to discover an absence rather than the sought-after volume, but once the ire subsides, doesn’t one feel a sense of community? The gaps in a library are like footprints in the sand; they show us where others have gone before; they assure us we are not alone. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

10 " We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd.
— Arm of the Sphinx "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

11 " that’s what hope is. Stubbornness. Refusing to go down. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

12 " Some friendships develop like flowers in a garden: they are conscientiously planted and nurtured. The ground about them is kept clear of competition. Then, after some weeks and months of incremental growth and laborious pruning, a flower blooms. Such cultivated friendships are agreeable and convenient, if not enduring. Other friendships seem to arise spontaneously, like an egg in a nest or a freckle upon an arm, and these are often mystifying, as both parties are left to wonder how exactly this unexpected affection took hold. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

13 " We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd. —Folkways and Right of Ways in the Silk Gardens, Anon. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

14 " Yes, I hear that people who suffer from brain damage are quite happy. That's what I always wanted for you, Edith: for you to be happy, no matter how many blows to the head it takes. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

15 " We all have weaknesses. Not everyone has strengths.” “I "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

16 " If one machine could do the work of so many men, what would be left for those men to do? In a thousand years, when the last human work was taken over by an automatic engine, would it conclude the liberation or the eslavement of the race? "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

17 " Like it or not, we are pirates. Saying please and thank you doesn’t change that. There are no devils by degree, no gentlemen thieves. There’s just strong and weak, the willing and the dead. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

18 " I’ve never once in my life looked forward to wearing a dress, so it’s nothing I’ll miss. But I wonder if anyone will ever look me in the eye again, or if they’ll be too busy gawking at this—tractor.” “Nonsense. It’s nothing a nice scarf can’t fix. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

19 " I’m pretty sure that’s what hope is. Stubbornness. Refusing to go down. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

20 " Of course I have a plan,” he said, clapping his hands. “We are going to die. "

― , Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)