Home > Work > A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation (The Unused Path)
21 " In the guv, we train the young people to do mindless tasks until they can supervise other young people doing mindless tasks. There's an actual talent pool there if only we’d develop it. "
― Vincent H. O'Neil , A Pause in the Perpetual Rotation (The Unused Path)
22 " Muriel landed in the garden she’d planted that first morning, unable to breathe but that was okay. It would end where it started. No more cages, no more schemes, a final harvest. "
23 " If it doesn’t work, she’ll leave him. In that case it would be nice if she had a safe place to go while she regroups. A father who made it clear when she left she could always come back. "
24 " So we moved away from the myth of the man on the white horse, the individual who was going to ride into our troubled town and solve all our problems. "
25 " I know who I am. I want to know who I was supposed to be. "
26 " Things never stay bad. They reach a point where nobody can stand it anymore, and then the process starts in the other direction. "
27 " When you run a shop, you gotta know how to chase away the prying eyes. Knock ‘em off balance with a question, and then keep pushing ‘til they flee. "
28 " Armand Fouche. Violent anti-contentment criminal. "
29 " Ever hear of benign neglect? This is benign ignorance. "
30 " Someone very smart was thinking very hard down there. "
31 " When an obstacle’s too tough, you don’t hit it head-on. If an object is truly immoveable, it’s also nailed to one place. Find a way around it. "
32 " They meet all our needs. They spread us out. They teach us to behave. So they can ignore us. "
33 " The next time someone tries to make a bet with your ass, tell them to make that bet with their own. "
34 " We’ll need to mock up fake videos of our own, populate the web with obvious frauds, to make all versions suspect. "
35 " He’d been murdered by the very people who were now calling him a hero. "
36 " Don’t kid yourself, Professor. The powerful don’t think things over. They just react. It’s all they know. "
37 " The AIs are always studying humans and what we do. The politicians taught them that if you don’t want somebody making a particular choice, you just remove that option entirely. "
38 " He spent his entire life looking for a jump-on-the-hand-grenade moment. I just never thought he’d pull the pin himself. "
39 " They don't think you're dumb. They're afraid you're smart. "
40 " Their kind never get asked to turn their intellects on full blast. But every now and then one of them gets pushed too far, and then we all find out what they can really do. The crime scene ‘bots pick up a lot of body parts when that’s over. "