The Margarets

Quotes

1. “That is the god of jihad,” she said. “That is the god of crusades. They are identical except for their names.”

   p. 55

2. 

   The place displayed luxury without comfort, ostentation without art. I hated it.

   p. 398

3. 

   Great wealth breeds great arrogance.

   p. 115

4. 

   Something in their history has moved them to patience. Wise leaders do not go to war with enemies, not even evil enemies, unless they have thought it through to the end.

   p. 504

5. 

   The Gardener says that mortals often pass laws they cannot enforce in order to be seen as “strong,” or “determined,” even though they know the laws will not solve the problem.

   p. 56

6. 

   “Are those gods real?” I demanded.

   “I am one of them, Gretamara. We exist, but we are not real in the sense that a tree is real or a rock is real. If all the people in the universe were gone, the rock or tree would still be there, but we deities exist only while our people do.”

   p. 283

7. 

   “Sit down, Grandma,” Glory urged. “You’re very pale. This is all very weird and strange, and you’re allergic to strange.”

   p. 389

8. 

   “That’s why we train women judges here at Temple. It is the nature of men to make rules for everything and to play complicated games with them. For them, the game is more important than justice.

   “Ordinary people prefer justice. They prefer that things be taken case by case, they prefer an attempt at justice over the rules of law, for they know that pure law is often used by the clever to victimize the innocent.”

   p. 189

9. 

   The people of Earth did not understand that humans were part of a worldwide organism, that something as tiny as a cluster of bacteria could mean the difference between life and death for every living thing, the difference between a functioning, flourishing planet and a desolation.

   p. 272

10. 

    “We have a membership provided the ISTO doesn’t declare all Earthians a barbarian people.”

    “I don’t know what that means,” I persisted, even though this wasn’t strictly part of the subject.

    Father gritted his teeth. “ISTO recognizes four types of creatures: civilized, semicivilized, barbarians, and animals. Civilized people know about, care about, and protect their environments. Semicivilized people know and care, but can’t do anything…”

    “Why not?”

    Mother said, “Because something prevents their acting in their own self-interest. Public apathy. Commercial interference. Religious opposition. Governmental corruption. The Gentherans say the humans have a lot of that.”

    Father frowned at her and went on. “Barbarians know but don’t care about their worlds, and animals don’t even know.”

    p. 29

11. 

    Human worlds are always awash in superstition, only a stubborn elite proof against it.

    p. 306

12. 

    Earth had always operated on a continuous-growth model that requires a poverty class. Sustainable models require productive work by all members and are quite different.

    p. 272

13. 

    Fear and superstition always follow the unseen, the unknown, the whispered of.

    p. 312

14. 

    Along the way, all meaning was lost except for verbal signals, the kind of signals any animal species develops in order to stay in touch with its own kind, call others to a feeding spot, or alert others to danger. Every linguist should know that language must be used to be retained, and the compilers of this report have warned that human language on Earth is also being reduced. As humans become more crowded, they become less tolerant of variety. To fit into a crowd, people must be similar, and Earth’s population today is a vat of homogeneity with only a pretense of choice remaining. One may pick model x with one curlicue or model y with three, the tasteless brown cracker or the tasteless yellow cracker, the actual difference in either case being nil. Any real choice among things of unlike value might lead to disparity, which leads to conflict. Ideas also contribute to disparity, and therefore in crowded populations ideas must be restricted to the least controversial, the least interesting. Children all receive the same grades in school. Workers all receive the same pay. Clothing is similar; Foods are identical; and with the passage of all distinctions the words for them also pass.

    p. 151

15. 

    For those impervious to history, only sterilization and quarantine are efficacious.

    p. 507

16. 

    They learn nothing, for they’re convinced they know everything that matters.

    p. 196

17. 

    “We have replanted five percent of the Brazilian desert where at one time jungles grew in leaf mold containing thousands of microorganisms atop hard, in fertile soil. When the trees were burned, so was the leaf mold, along with the microorganisms. The stony, sterile ground was barren. On these barrens we have planted hearty ‘starvation’-type coverage: many thorns, a few leaves. When these have had a few decades to accumulate organic detritus, we will plant slightly less hearty things at their roots. After another few decades, we can plant the next generation, and so on. It will take over two hundred years for each acre to achieve fifteen percent of the organic mass it once held. It will take a millennium or more for each acre to achieve anything approaching the fertile growth that was its glory as one of Earth’s chief oxygenators.”

    p. 271

18. 

    That symbol always reminded me of that historic educational effort called “No child left behind,” which actually meant “No child gets ahead,” for compliance meant dumbing everything down so no one would learn more than the least capable. “Enough for all” really meant “Too little for everybody.”

    p. 155

19. 

    Ideas oozed out of books like magma out of volcanoes.

    p. 15

20. 

    Mr. Weathereye had always said that civility could not possibly be resented by any civilized person; that if resentment were offered, it was a sure sign of loutdom.

    p. 132

21. 

    “So that’s a magical world down there?” asked Bamber.

    Falija replied in an astonished voice, “No, of course it’s not magical. It’s completely real. It simply has a lot of lifeforms that you’re unfamiliar with.”

    Glory asked, “What do you mean, it’s not magical, it’s real?”

    “It’s a real world. It has real qualities. Up is always up and down is always down. Fruit falls from a tree, it doesn’t float to the sky. Creatures are born in this world, and grow up and eventually die. What’s true today is also true tomorrow.

    “If this were a magical world, all those things would be subject to could have by anyone who had power or could command it by spell or enchantment. Magical worlds can’t exist in our universe because their rules change constantly, and there’s no difference between evil and good. Power is power, and everyone does what they can get away with.”

    “I always thought magic was sort of nice,” said Glory.

    Falija’s ears drooped. “Humans are fascinated with magic. Your people like to believe in powers that will break all the laws of the universe, just for you.” Falija shivered.

    p. 351

22. 

    “Though many mortals speak with authority concerning what their Members want—“Our Father wants us to sacrifice a bullock,” “Kali demands we garrote a passerby”—the desires and demands of the gods are always determined by the desires and demands of the people. Whatever the prophet or priesthood comes up with, the gods parrot.

    p. 53

23. 

    “The Gentherans said too many Earthians were in fact barbarians who didn’t care what happened to Earth because they believed they’d be off in some lovely afterlife by that time.”

    “Would they be?” I asked, wonderstruck this idea.

    “I sincerely doubt it,” Mother snapped.

    p. 30

24. 

    It did not take long to find out that Earth was no different from Phobos. People on Earth engaged in ritual repetition; most of them thought as little as possible; most of them occupied themselves with things and events that were not very important. Amusement stage dramas were the same as the ones I had seen on Phobos. All music had been so extensively filtered, corrected, and augmented by technology that it all sounded alike. Singing voices were improved by electronic means, as were the faces, the bodies, and the dramatic ability of actors and actresses. No one was plain; no one was allowed to be ugly; no one was very different from anyone else. In school, the stupid students got the same grades as the smart ones except for the tiny secret marks the educational archivists made in their records – in case a VIP needed a truthful reference.

    p. 86

25. 

    “The human problem?” I asked, somewhat offended.

    She put her arm around me. “Forgive me, Gretamara, but your race as a whole has the unfailing habit of fouling its nest, killing its original planet, and doing its best to kill any others to which it is moved. Because we love and admire the human race for its many good qualities, we call this not ‘the human condition,’ meaning an irrevocable state, but ‘the human problem,’ one we wish to solve. The effort has gone on for some millennia, without result, and some of those involved in the effort are beginning to believe it is a waste of time and treasure.”

    p. 276

26. 

    The only thing rarer than louts who think is louts who read.

    p. 96

27. 

    “Anything interesting in the paper?”

    “Some tragedy, some comedy, nothing that’ll matter in a hundred years,” I said.

    p. 238

28. 

    “There,” Gardener said, pointing. “That little female one. Its name is Oh-pity-me. It cannot see the sun for the daylight nor the stars for the darkness, and it is worshipped by a surprising number of people.

    p. 281

29. 

    And that very strong one with the hammer. That might be Thor.

    “Actually,” the Gardener murmured,” he is Thor, Hercules, Apollo, Gilgamesh, Adonis, Osiris, Krishna, virtually every young male deity known for strength, beauty, and intrepidity, just as my colleague, Mr. Weathereye, is Odin, Jupiter, Jove, Allah, Jehovah, or any other ancient male deity known for wisdom, power, and prescience. And the old woman there, Lady Badness, is Erda, Norn, Moira, Sophia, the wisewoman who can detect the pattern in the weavings of happenstance before mankind here’s the shuttle coming.”

    “I’m named for her?” asked Sophia.

    “For her, yes. And I, Gardener, am also Demeter, Cybele, Freya, Earth Mother, Corn Goddess, a thousand names of female deities wise in the ways of growing things, solicitous of women and children, caretakers of the beasts of the field and the woods. Some of us Members are sizable, for many mortals, including humans, believe in strength, and power, and nurture, and wisdom.”

    “What are all those hunched-up things?” asked Sophia.

    The Gardener shook her head.” Sophia, those are the gods many humans prefer. They are hunched from ages of sitting on peoples shoulders, whispering encouragement.”

    “But they’re tiny!” she said, in disbelief.

    “Many humans prefer tiny gods,” said the Gardener. “Tiny gods of limited preoccupations…”

    “Limited to what?” I demanded.

    “To mankind, of course. And to each believer, particularly. Each human wants god to be his or her best friend, and it’s easier to imagine god being your best friend if he is a tiny little god interested only in a tiny world that’s only a kind of vestibule to an exclusive little heaven.”

    “Some of them are yelling,” said Sophia.

    “Oh, yes. Those are hellfire gods. Since there is no supernatural hell, they never really send anyone there, but their sources get enormous pleasure, thinking about it.”

    p. 280

30. 

    By the time mortal races leave their home planets, many of their gods have already amalgamated with one another. Small tribal godlets are often thrust together through shared execrations. All Death-Honor-and-War gods, for example, are identical. The people may fly different flags, but their gods are happy to drink blood from both sides of the battle.

    p. 55

31. 

    Think of that, Joziré! A court dedicated to pure justice, one that can overrule the law! They didn’t even have one of those back on old Earth!

    p. 69

32. 

    The use of destructive, noisy machinery for recreational purposes must become anathema to humans, as unthinkable as eating one’s young.

    p. 114

33. 

    You don’t remember your first ancestors. You have no memory of ninety-nine percent of what makes you what you are! Instead you have comfy baby-stories you tell yourselves to explain why you’re not good people. What sin you committed or how you didn’t do with this god or that god told you. Instead of learning how not to be bad, you learn how to be forgiven and carried off to heaven. Most of you find it easier to believe the baby-stories than to learn from history and science, because it takes brains and hard study to understand history and science, but the stories are simple and comfy. People who want things easy and comfy resent people who study things. They teach their children the comfy stories and tell them not to worry about studying, just buy a ticket to go to heaven, and gradually, everyone becomes as ignorant as everyone else. It’s happened time after time on Earth.

    p. 302

34. 

    We had both learned from the Gardener that old vengeance is like old cake: still seeming sweet, but so dry that one invariably chokes on it.

    p. 398

35. 

    Old gods sometimes do that in their retirement. They become galactic social workers, self-appointed do-gooders.

    p. 502

That’s all the quotes.

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