Quotes
My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.
I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.
'Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.'
Apparently, the Fates were not so unsubtle as to deal him another blow just yet. He knew they didn’t operate that way. They always let you hope for a while longer, then strung it out before they really let you have it.
p. 68
If all human events possess purpose, then all human deeds possess purpose. And yet when men vie with men, the purpose of no man comes to fruition: the result always falls somewhere in between. The purpose of deeds, then, cannot derive from the purposes of men, because all men vie with all men. This means the deeds of men must be willed by something other than men. From this it follows that we are all slaves.
Who then is our Master?
Fate always pays attention to what you think, then slams it up your fucken ass.
Character is destiny.
She had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.
She hated everything that predestined people, that fooled them, that made them slightly less than human. (p. 291)
It is said that the gods play games with the lives of men. But what games, and why, and the identities of the actual pawns, and what the game is, and what the rules are—who knows?
p. 21
This was one of those points where the Trousers of Time bifurcated themselves, and if you weren't careful you'd go down the wrong leg—(p. 335)
Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn't trust it. Often you couldn't even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence.
