65 quotes found
“There is often no line between perfection and evil.”
“Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.”
“Do you see how much power you have when you act without fear?”
“A loyal servant does not think of things outside of his control.”
“Taking away men's weapons will be not bring peace. They'll fight with sticks and stones, and tooth and nail. Mapidr's is a peace supported only by fear, as secure as a nest built on a rotten branch.”
“I don't pay much attention to the distinction between fantasy and science fictionor between genre and mainstream for that matter. For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors-which i...”
“There is far more happiness in a life that is your own than a life in which you are handed the lines to say and shown the gestures to make. Do not ever be ambitious.”
“Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses ...”
“I thought my duty was to restore Haan, but Haan is not King Cosugi or the burned-down palace or the ruins of the great estates or the dead nobles and their descendants pining for glory-these are bu...”
“I have seen the poor suffer when nobles seek the purity of ideals. I have seen the powerless die when princes believe in the nostalgia of their dreams. I have seen the common people torn from peace...”
“He intrigued her. Powerful men, in her experience, were usually not so full of doubt. Kuni was consumed by the desire to do good for others, but uncertain what "good" might be and whether he was th...”
“The calf is capable of walking quite well now," Dazu said. "He never stumbles.""But I told you to carry him back here," the teacher said. "The first thing a soldier must learn is to obey orders."Ev...”
“The fact that we can never have complete, perfect knowledge does not absolve us of the moral duty to judge and to take a stand against evil.”
“I've always thought it nonsense to believe something true simply because it was written in a book long ago.”
“But being the mirrors for each other's souls has a cost: by the time they part from each other, the individuals in the mating pair have become indistinguishable. Before their merger, they each year...”
“A little self-doubt is a good thing," said Jia, "but not excessive doubt. Sometimes we live up to the stories others tell about us.”
“As the wind continued to howl and groan through her decaying body, she began to sing her story.”
“We are not defined by our individual loneliness, but by the web of relationships in which were enmeshed.”
“Clearing away the superficial structure of the reigns of emperors and the dates of battles, there was the deeper rhythm of history's ebb and flow not as the deeds of great men, but as the lives liv...”
“But it's not really Chinese, is it?'Logan was thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know. I guess you'd say it's really not if you look back thousands of years. But I don't think that way. Lots of thin...”
“Time's arrow is the loss of fidelity in compression. A sketch, not a photograph. A memory is a re-creation, precious because it is both more and less than the original.”
“The Allatians believe that they have a writing system superior to all others. Unlike books written in alphabets, syllabaries, or logograms, an Allatian book captures not only words, but also the wr...”
“At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potential in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until mus...”
