Novelists From The United States

"So fare the fortunes of men, Skeeter thought bitterly, when seven wolves and a sheep decide what’s for lunch. Perfect democracy: everybody got to vote. Even the lunch."

"“He’ll get a life sentence for the illegal trafficking alone and probably a death sentence for the people he killed along the way.” He sighed slightly. “I always did fancy happy endings.”"

"All the years he’d spent fooling himself into thinking that what he did was correct was simply time wasted from his life, on delusions and fantasies that kept him from seeing what he was and where he was inevitably headed with genuine clarity."

"The more I learn about history, the more savage I find it was."

"A tiny whisper at the back of her mind warned her to be wary of what one asked the gods for, lest they grant it."

"Bull Morgan was just the right man for the job, a man who found the law useful in how far it could occasionally be bent to save a friend."

"Kit chuckled. “You, Bull Morgan, are a wicked judge of human character.” “Hell, Kit, thought you’d figured it out by now: all human character is wicked. Just varies in degree is all.”"

"Skeeter just couldn’t figure out what was so horrible about taking a good, long, clear-eyed look at one’s past and facing whatever one found in it. Making up the past to fit whatever idea some politically correct group wanted to pass off as reality this week seemed a lot more dangerous to him than facing brutal facts."

"The more chaotic the world, the greater the need for ritual."

"Skeeter thought dark, vile thoughts at bureaus and the bureauc-rats that ran ’em."

"The death of the wildebeest herd didn’t change the bloody savagery she’d witnessed in the Roman Circus, but it put life and death in much clearer perspective. Nature wasn’t any nobler or gentler than human beings. It was just as deadly and just as cruel and just as savagely “unfair” to the weak... Maybe more so."

"But—as Kit and Sven had been so fond of saying—the Universe didn’t give beans for “fair.” It simply was. You got it right or paid the price."

"Malcolm had forgotten how very young eighteen was, with its mixture of invincible assuredness, fragile emotions, and the desperate need to be taken seriously—even when caught in complete ignorance."

"“She’s young, Kit.” “That’s no excuse. The universe doesn’t give a damn when it squashes you.”"

"“Education,” he smiled, “is never a waste of time.”"

"“Oh. I was beginning to worry.” “You do that,” Kit laughed. “I like it better when you’re worried. Proves you’re thinking.” She put out a pink tongue. “You’re mean and horrible. Why does everybody else like you?” Kit scratched his head. “Search me. Guess it’s my good looks and charm.”"

"“Uncle Sven and I are about to start your first lesson in survival theory.” She gave them both a dubious glance. “That being?” Sven guffawed. “When the fight starts, be someplace else. And always remember, nobody watches your butt for you when it’s You versus the Universe—and Margo, the universe just don’t give a damn.”"

"When it comes to scouts, heroes are just people who confuse cowardice with common sense."

"“Hi, Sven.” “Hi, yourself. The answer’s no.”"

"Small towns were terrible places to grow up with world-sized dreams—especially when those dreams were the only things you had left to hold onto."

"So far as supply and demand are concerned, books in general and works of fiction in particular are commodities and subject to the same laws, statutory and traditional, as other articles of manufacture. A toy-dealer would not venture to sell real pistols to little boys as pop-guns, and a gun-maker who should try to sell the latter for army revolvers would get into trouble, even though he were able to prove that the toy was as expensive to manufacture as the real article, or more so, silver-mounted, chiselled, and lying in a Russia-leather case. I am not sure that the law might not support the purchaser in an action for damages if he discovered at a critical moment that his revolver was a plaything. It seems to me that there is a similar case in the matter of novels. A man buys what purports to be a work of fiction, a romance, a novel, a story of adventure, pays his money, takes his book home, prepares to enjoy it at his ease, and discovers that he has paid a dollar for somebody’s views on socialism, religion, or the divorce laws."

"A novel is a marketable commodity, of the class collectively termed “luxuries,” as not contributing directly to the support of life or the maintenance of health. It is of the class "artistic luxuries" because it does not appeal to any of the three material senses — touch, taste, smell; and it is of the class "intellectual artistic luxuries,” because it is not judged by the superior senses — sight and hearing."

"We know little of the lives of others, but we are apt to think that other people understand our own very well, including our good deeds if we have done any, and we expect full measure of credit for these, and the utmost allowance of charity for our sins. In other words we desire our neighbour to combine a power of forgiveness almost divine with a capacity for flattery more than parasitic."

"It is easier to bear suffering when one clearly understands all its causes, and distinguishes just how great a part of it is inevitable and how great a part may be avoided or mitigated."

"The lover of romance may lie in the sun, caring not for the time of day and content to watch the butterflies that cross his blue sky on the way from one flower to another. But the historian is an entomologist who must be stirring. He must catch the moths, which are his facts, in the net which is his memory, and he must fasten them upon his paper with sharp pins, which are dates."

"There is a scale in the meaning of the word socialist. In France it means about the same thing as a communist, when one uses plain language. When one uses the language of Monsieur Drumont, it means a Jew. In England a socialist is equal to a French conservative republican. In America it means a thief. In Germany it means an ingenious individual of restricted financial resources, who generally fails to blow up some important personage with wet dynamite. In Italy a socialist is an anarchist pure and simple, who wishes to destroy everything existing for the sake of dividing a wealth which does not exist at all. It also means a young man who orders a glass of water and a toothpick at a cafe, and is able to talk politics for a considerable time on this slender nourishment."

"Careless is stupid, he snarled at himself, and stupid can be fatal."

"“What?” Jenna came out of her chair so fast, it crashed over. “Are you insane?” “No,” Skeeter said mildly, “although I know a few people who might argue the point.”"

"“You know,” Malcolm remarked to no one in particular, “I’d say that chap doesn’t enjoy time travel.”"

"Are you out of your mind? No, you have to be in possession of a mind, first, to be out of it."

"“How much did that ridiculous maintenance job of yours pay?” Skeeter blinked. “Five bucks an hour, why?” “Five bucks? That’s not a salary, that’s slavery!”"

"Once again, Caddrick had failed to use the few brains God had given him."

"Playing God was a sweetly addictive game."

"“No matter how you look at it,” Margo muttered, “when you get down to it, human beings aren’t really much better than killer plains apes, are they? Just a thin sugar-coating of civilization to make ’em look prettier.”"

"Li was a very honest and honorable man. But when it came to any man’s abiding passion, honesty occasionally went straight out the nearest available window."

"A brave man is one who admits his fear. Only a fool believes himself invincible."

"Wearing a cape doesn't do much for your social life."

"When your laboratory explodes, lacing your body with a supercharged elixir, what do you do? You don't just lie there. You crawl out of the rubble, hideously scarred, and swear vengeance on the world. You keep going. You keep trying to take over the world."

"I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes. I fought CoreFire to a standstill, and the Super Squadron, and the Champions. Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser. And whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could with his life."

"Go out to the last few grains of sand, the smartest of the smartest of the smartest, times a thousand. It makes sense that people would be a little odd out here. But you really have to wonder why we all end up in jail."

"When life gives you lemons you squeeze them, hard. Make invisible ink. Make an acid poison. Fling it in their eyes."

"How do you take over the world? I've tried everything. Doomsday devices of every kind, nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological, gadgets that fit in a shoe box and that were visible from space. I've tried mass mind control; I've stolen the gold reserves in Fort Knox, only to lose them again. I've traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it; I've stopped time altogether to live in a world of statues. I've commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasion. Interdimensional alien invasion. Alien god invasion. Even a corporate takeover, Impossible Industries, LLC. Each time it ended the same way. I've been to jail twelve times."

"Reality is ungraspable. For convenience we use a limited-reality consensus in which work can be done, transport arranged, and essential services provided. The real reality is something else—only the strangeness of it can be taken in and that's what interests me: the strangeness of human consciousness; the strangeness of life and death; the strangeness of what the living and the dead are to one another; and the strangeness of ideas ... that seem to have been with us from long before the stories of them happened. The real reality, the flickering of seen and unseen actualities, the moment under the moment, can't be put into words; the most that a writer can do—and this is only rarely achieved—is to write in such a way that the reader finds himself in a place where the unwordable happens off the page."

"“An astonishing story,” Bomfils said. “I regret to say that I do not believe it.”"

"Sir, you are continually insulting. Is that because you are afraid of losing your authority? Is that why you give free rein to your vexatious personality, constantly assuming the shrill posture of a dictator?"

"Oh, a few temple priests have been predicting dire things in an effort to improve public morals, but no one takes them seriously."

"I think I’m as normal as the next guy. But I won’t go after what I want regardless of the price. Doing that nullifies the worth of whatever you’re after."

"“The syndicated journalist?” “The syndicated muckraker would be more like it,” Dr. Walker said. “Mister Sensationalism. Specialist in the exposé. Long on headlines, short on facts.”"

"I was warned that you were an authoritarian personality, Dr. Lindstrum – not to say overbearing. The warnings were not exaggerated. With only modest encouragement, I could dislike you thoroughly."

"Designed to carry heavy armament. Designed for war. A commerce raider. She would roam the earth and do inestimable damage to Yankee shipping."