Michael Swanwick

"Incolore sighed. “The loyalty of the systematically betrayed. Is there anything sadder?”"

"“Are you ready?” Jane asked. “Before I existed, I was ready.”"

"“We’ll be taking out the front gate and the Time Clock, and blasting the Goddess Stone to gravel.” She felt wild, free, vengeful, obscene—unstoppable. “Serving the Bitch notice.” She knew that there was no Goddess, save as a metaphor for what was otherwise inconceivable, that the forces they were going up against were as impersonal as they were vast. But it felt more satisfying this way."

"There’s no future for me. All my life I’ve been stuck in a rigged game. The dice are loaded and I was declared a loser before I even began to play. These are not just words! What choice was I ever given? Only this one, right here, right now. I can swallow defeat meekly or I can throw the board up in the air and smash all the pieces. Well, I’ve been screwed from Day One—I have no intention whatsoever of being a good sport!"

"The universe has backed you into another corner—you can kill or die. There are no other choices. Doesn’t that make you angry? Doesn’t it make you want revenge? Or are you going to truckle to Dame Fate one more time, to be crushed and for all I know resurrected to run the maze of torment again and yet again? Stand up on your hind legs for once!"

"For a long time the Baldwynn did not speak. At last he said, “Will you serve the Goddess now? Knowingly and lovingly, in sweet obedience and humble acknowledgment of all that she is?” “No.” The word was a pebble in her mouth. She spat it out. “Not now, not tomorrow, not if I live to be a million. Never.” The Baldwynn stopped and took her hands in his. “Dear child,” he said. “I feared there was no hope for you.”"

"They were not aware of the madness that lurked within their own minds."

"“Now here is a treasure, Averroës Commentaries on Aristotle in a tolerable translation from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona.” He lasciviously stroked the red leather boards, knowing well how his pupil ached for the chance to pore through it. “A liar’s gloss on a liar’s lies. Surely this is a rare criminal.”"

"The hearsay of hearsay is not admissible as scholarship."

"Faust had no delusions of Heavenly aid. An involved and benevolent deity would have helped him long years ago when, young, he had yearned for knowledge as achingly as now and with far fewer stains on his soul."

"He stood unmoving, wondering at his own abrupt and incomprehensible inability to act. He did not fear damnation. Nor did he give a fig for the common opinion of Mankind. There was nothing to stop him but fear alone—fear that his reasoning was wrong."

"This is the price you must pay for knowledge: You must understand and acknowledge its consequences."

"“How...how can”—savagely, he slashed an arm down before him in absolute negation of all he saw—“such be? How could God allow it?” “God? You fool—there is no God!” The words struck Faust like a great bronze clapper, shattering the crusted certainties of a lifetime, reverberating, setting up echoes that washed back and forth through his being in slowly lessening waves, leaving no atom unshaken, no belief untouched. There was no God. He knew this for the truth, recognized it as such on an almost physical level, for it summed up everything he had ever thought or reasoned. It resolved a thousand doubts. It left no question unanswered. There was no God! Everything was possible now. Nothing was forbidden."

"“Surely,” he cried, “this is not inevitable. Surely humanity could take the knowledge you offer and use it to ennoble itself. Surely they could apply it wisely and without folly.” “They could,” Mephistopheles said dryly. “But will they?”"

"“Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?” “Because it’s true.” Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.”"

"“Out of doors on a moonless night?” Mette sneered. “Only fools, footpads, and astrologers stray where there is no light.”"

"“I have no need to expose myself to your flummery,” Mette said with dignity. “I believe in order that I may know. I do not know in order to believe.” “I marvel at your spite. Of what possible benefit can this willful ignorance be to you?”"

"(Information is information, Faust. Knowledge is knowledge. I make no distinction between the high and the low.)"

"(All human beings have their price, and quite often it is surprisingly small. The trick consists of knowing exactly what that price is, when they themselves do not.)"

"So it was that the Catherines poured water and spooned gruel, while the Clares prayed for the intercession of the saints. The Catherines changed sheets. The Clares practiced mortification of the flesh. The Catherines employed antibiotics. The Clares made a public display of a kneecap of their patron saint. It was soon widely know to which hospital one went to get well, and to which one went to die."

"Our records must be scrupulous, whether they show what we want them to show or not."

"Margarete saw, and disapproved, and understood. It was perfectly natural that Youth, being given a new and revolutionary truth, should embrace it too eagerly, should defend it too loudly, should proclaim it in the extremest terms and without regard for the sensibilities of others. Natural, too, that Age, vested as it was in things as they had always been, should reject the truth as unsettling and dangerous. In the ace of such strong emotions, the only sane thing to do therefore was to embrace the truth circumspectly, to hide one’s new allegiance from one’s elders."

"There was so much going on, and so little he cared to know about!"

"“The law,” Hoess suggested, “might not be entirely unhelpful here.”"

"“Good men are dying at this very moment to protect you, your factories, your possessions, and all civilization.” “Good men are dying every moment,” Gretchen replied coldly, “somewhere. Since they did not ask my leave to do so, I feel no particular obligation toward them.”"

"Still, it was no easy thing to flirt in German."

"“Let me explain to you,” the Horned One said, “the nature of history.” “What?” “The first thing you need to know is that history happens almost exclusively in the dark...Here is your second lesson: History is that which cannot be prevented...Here is your third and final lesson: History is simply life with all the bits any sane person might care to experience left out.”"

"(There are three stages to a battle: First you’re bored. Then you’re terrified. Then you’re dead. Each is necessary, and they must all come in the proper order.)"

"“Paid off? Do you mean bribery?” “That is, umm, not an entirely pleasant word for it.” Dreschler’s doughy face took on a pained expression. “It is more in the nature of an advance payment to ensure the labor force will be satisfied with the negotiated wage schedules.”"

"Faust wallowed heavily over on his side, presenting a pitiable face to Wagner. “Never fall in love,” he said. “She will take lovers, and some of them will be more experienced and capable than you. I tell you this as a friend—there are dishes once tasted, a woman is loath to do without.”"

"“Tell me! What do you think of life? What do you think of ambition? What do you think of science, of learning, of love, of fame, of glory, of aspiration?” “I think...that those are all very different things.” “You are wrong. They are all one thing—a cunt.” “Sir?” “A cunt! Consider: The cunt is a nasty, ugly, filthy thing. Yet we desire it so greatly as to be willing to suffer any indignity to attain it. For the sake of it we labor and preen and whisper sugary words. We go to the theatre with flowers in our arms, climb over back walls by moonlight, write sonnets, jump out of windows with our trousers in our hands, give dangerous men their choice of weapons. We build love-nests for it sake, and cities, and civilizations. It is our all, our only, our ideal. It has created us and made us great. Such is life, such is ambition, such is science, learning, love, fame, glory, and aspiration. The Eternal Cunt,” he said significantly, “draws us onward.”"

"What the common man calls Evil, he once told me, is nothing more than the fear of one’s own potential."

"Urban life was thus founded upon the principle of deliberately confounding those who were not a part of it. Civilization was a strategy of exclusion."

"That is the true measure of love, you see, the evil one will stoop to for its sake..."

"It was not possible for her to rejoin the unthinking world, becoming as she had been before, sleepily and smugly ignorant of consequences. There were thoughts that once thought, could not be unthought."

"This was human glory—a sad and exhaust-darkened memorial for good citizens to ignore and drunks to piss upon on their way home from the brothels. Here was the omega-point of all ambition."

"He was not actually drunk, but emotion made him feel as if he were. Sorrow, loss, anger—these were as good as a bottle of the very worst gin."

"He had for many years thought of Christ as a rival in greatness. Now he realized they were both brothers in misery. Their enemies were identical: the howling mob, the fearful, the inferior, the baying hounds of conventional morality."

"“Fool. There is no why. The very word is a semantic fallacy. Ask me how and I can lay out for you cause and effect, one thing leading to another, the alcohol acting on a grieving man’s mind, the door inadequately guarded, the people within isolated from the common lot of humanity by the dreadful secret of their ancestry.” He rattled his glass. Nathan refilled it. Faust drank. “But to ask why,” he continued, “implies that things happen for a purpose, and they do not. There is no purpose, no direction, no guidance to events. Nothing means anything. The world is a howling desert of meaningless, and reason is useless before it. There is only blind event.” He stared off into the bleak landscapes of the future while Nathan refilled his glass and refilled his glass and refilled his glass. He saw so clearly now, without delusion or hope. It was a crystal night of the soul."

"It pained him to think how naive he had once been."

"Everything was dying, yet death did not suffice. Life had hidden resources. In a thousand ways it was concentrating strength, hoarding its energies in seed, chrysalis, and nectar, preparing for the warrior sweep out of exile that would undo the defeat of winter. Spring was implicit."

"He was accustomed to questioning an essentially impassive universe. The physical world might be maddeningly close-lipped about its secrets, but it didn’t lie, and it never actively tried to deceive you."

"Common sense has very little to do with physics."

"And she was off, leaping like a salmon from idea to idea. Hers was the kind of fast and playful intellect that enjoyed tossing a stone into the pond of received wisdom, just to see the frogs jump."

"We did it the way we did it because according to the records, that’s the way we did it. The rules against paradox bind us as tightly as they do you."

"Everybody dies. So much of growing up consists of coming to grips with this fact."

"She had learned at an early age that it was not how often you were wrong that counted in science, but how often you were right. One startling hit covered a multitude of bad guesses."

"But the way she saw it, you only had so much organization in your life. You had to choose: Invest it in your research, or fritter it away on housework."

"You have to spell things out for the press—you can’t rely on them to know even the simplest things."

"It really is a pity. Esme was so full of curiosity and enthusiasm when she was a child. She’d make a great biologist. But it was her misfortune to be born wealthy. She had dreams. But her parents had too much money to allow that."