vile bodies

“He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.”

- Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it.”

- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as a leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new. This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“A lovely young Italian girl passed by. Byron tilted his head to a very odd angle, half-closed his eyes and composed his features to suggest that he was about to expire from chronic indigestion. Dr. Greysteel could only suppose that he was treating the young woman to the Byronic profile and the Byronic expression.”

- Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

“We can secure other people’s approval, if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.”

- Mark Twain, Following the Equator

“The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.”

- Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“Things change, people change, but that doesn’t mean you should forget the past.”

- Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted

“I have just turned life into a proverb. I just killed it.”

- Giannina Braschi, Empire of Dreams

“”Sorry,” she said, “I got out as fast as I could, but I had to stay and socialize. Protocol, you know.”
“Explain protocol,” Nell said. This was how she always talked to the Primer.
“At the place we’re going, you need to watch your manners. Don’t say ‘explain this’ or ‘explain that.’”
“Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?” Nell said.
Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm.”

- Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age

“So you want to live ‘according to nature?’ Oh, you noble Stoics, what a fraud is in this phrase! Imagine something like nature, profligate without measure, indifferent without measure, without purpose and regard, without mercy and justice, fertile and barren and uncertain at the same time, think of indifference itself as power — how could you live according to this indifference? Living — isn’t that wanting specifically to be something other than this nature? Isn’t living assessing, preferring, being unfair, being limited, wanting to be different? And assuming your imperative to ‘live according to nature’ basically amounts to ‘living according to life’ — well how could you not? Why make a principle out of what you yourselves are and must be?”

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil