Fool Me Twice

Quotes

1. She could be—he hoped would be—what he had always lacked: a center to the map of his life, that one, necessary fixed point from which he could navigate out into the world and by which he could always find his way back home again.

   p. 386

2. 

   The commerciants of Olkney were renowned for their egalitarian spirit, judging rich and poor alike solely by the weight of their purses.

   p. 212

3. 

   “That is unfair,” said Filidor.

   Gavne shrugged. “Things are as they are. If you quest after justice, young women are the wrong continent to explore. They run more to clemency or spite.”

   p. 347

4. 

   “We are all used, all users. With luck, the final tally approximates a balance in our favor. But I think you are one of those who calls the proverbial glass half empty, while I prefer to call it half full.”

   “No,” said Filidor, “in truth, I have never given these matters much thought. I am one who quaffs the glass empty and calls for it to be refilled.”

   p. 276

5. 

   The direct approach is not always the wisest strategy, as those who have fallen off mountains can testify.

   p. 302

6. 

   Things are as they were meant to be.

   “But it was arranged so by you and me.”

   Then we are instruments of fate.

   “Knowing instruments,” said Filidor.

   How does that make a difference?

   p. 308

7. 

   Assigning blame is a fixation of an ineffective mind.

   p. 318

8. 

   Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

   p. 368

9. 

   Filidor marveled at the intransigence of adolescence, not remembering that he had possessed an abundance of the same quality not many years since.

   p. 355

10. 

    Well, as I say, authority is always lawfully relinquished, but sometimes the legitimacy is acquired after the relinquishment.

    “You mean retroactively?”

    I mean that cause and effect are not always arranged in an ideal sequence.

    “In other words,” Filidor translated, “not only do victors write the histories, but usurpers also rewrite the rule book to justify the illicit seizure of office.”

    Perhaps not the most felicitous manner of putting it, but essentially correct.

    “I am surprised the people put up with such shenanigans. They should rise up.”

    Unwittingly, I am sure, you put your finger on the flaw in your own reasoning.

    “How so?”

    You said, “They should rise up,” not “We should rise up.” As long as it is a matter to be solved by others, it will not be.

    p. 301

11. 

    As ever, you vainly grasp at diaphanous vastness while the tangible turns to mist in your hands.

    p. 322

That’s all the quotes.

11 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more