Dervish Daughter

Quotes

1. “I do not like the thought of compulsion.”

   He shook his head at me. “Not compulsion, Jinian. Information, more like. It is as though I had been given a map which showed both the good roads and the swamps. Is it compulsion to avoid the swamps if one knows they are there?”

   p. 42

2. 

   This is the problem with too much Schooling. One learns to manipulate the labels in a way that the Gamesmistresses approve, and one doesn’t realize that things do not always act in accordance with the labels in the real world. One doesn’t realize that the labels, come to that, are often wrong.

   p. 138

3. 

   “The old ones, Ganver and the rest, they pretend it has significance. Oh, I recall that pretense, Seer. In my youth I was shown many things. ‘Watch and learn,’ they said to me. ‘Bao,’ they said to me. So I watched, but it was only nonsense. They showed me this and showed me that, but it meant nothing. It was only pretense, done to mystify us young ones and keep us subservient. The sign has no power. It is nothing. A symbol only; a symbol of our degradation.”

   p. 154

4. 

   We had what we thought was the answer and we troubled to look no further.

   p. 208

5. 

   “Better late than not at all,” came a voice from the ranked multitude. “Better a tardy lover than a lonely bed.”

   p. 206

6. 

   “Well, why didn’t the silly Bloomians think of that?”

   “Religion, I imagine, friend Chance. Religion serves to prevent thought in many cases, and I’d say it had done so here. They started with the presumption that anything as complex as the mill must exist for a good reason. Then they spent all their time inventing a good reason—and some god to be responsible for it—rather than looking for a sensible solution to their problem.”

   p. 63

7. 

   There always has to be someone to see things first.

   p. 206

8. 

   Why are we wondering why the world wishes itself dead when we are doing nothing to heal it?

   p. 203

That’s all the quotes.

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