Quotes

This is just quotes from whatever I’m reading or listening to at the moment

[currentquotes]

““They believe they are doing good…We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquillity or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty.””

[currentquotes]

“It wasn't that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws. It just didn't offer many opportunities not to break them. Swing didn't seem to have grasped the idea that the system was supposed to take criminals and, in some rough and ready fashion, force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he'd taken honest men and turned them into criminals.”

[currentquotes]

“ Hard to explain to a kid like Sam why poncing a dollar when you got the chance was a bad thing to do.

‘Put it like this, lanceconstable,’ as they turned the corner. 'Would you let a murderer off for a thousand dollars?'

'No, sir!'

'A thousand dollars'd set your mum up in a nice place in a good part of town, though.'

'Knock it off, sarge, I'in not like that.'

'You were when you took that dollar. Everything else is just a haggling over the price.' ”

[currentquotes]

I wasn’t crying for my mother-or myself-or even that poor homeless man. I was crying for all of us. There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it. The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other.

[currentquotes]

I used to think it was suicide. Now I think it was attempted murder. Because I was in the car too, wasn’t I?

[currentquotes]

He wanted me to be malicious, and jealous, and vindictive; he wanted me to have done it out of hatred. Because otherwise I would be—like that…

[currentquotes]

Maybe I should have followed him; but somehow it went from too soon to too late, without the right moment in between.

[currentquotes]

I actually got so into Vicious when I was reading the second half I forgot to find any quotes

[currentquotes]

“ “…To be remembered is, I think, a basic human right. Not one that occurs to a person when it is there, but like a parched throat in a desert when it is gone.””

[currentquotes]

“ “Diane, what does it mean when you know you’re feeling something but you don’t know what that feeling is?”

Diane considered this seriously for a long time.

“It means you’re growing older.”

“ I never grow older.”

“I guess we all thought that once.”

… “Is it hard getting old?”

“Only as hard as you let it be. Easier than the alternative.”

“Dying?”

“Oh no. No, that’s actually easier than anything…” ”

[currentquotes]

“ it didn’t matter what he said. The world is terrifying. It always is. But Cecil remind her that it was okay to relax in a terrifying world.”

[currentquotes]

“ The limited scale of the human life startle Diane. There was so little actual time between ages that felt vastly different. She had categorized Jackie as different than Josh, and herself is different than Jackie, but the span of years between any two of them wasn’t much of a span at all.”

[currentquotes]

“ “I mean I would never do that. I just think it. Does this make me a bad person?”

“You are only a bad person if you do bad things,” said the second anchor.

“Thank you.”

“That’s not an acquittal, Diane. The counterpoint is that you are only a good person if you do good things.”

…

A good person is a person who does good things. It was a deceptively simple prescription because it implied that she or anyone else knew what good things are. What did she do in this situation that was good, and by what standard? ”

[currentquotes]

“ “I hope your brother will be okay,” Jackie said.

“He’ll be what he’ll be. And we’ll all learn to be okay with whatever that is.””

[currentquotes]

“All information was important information, even if the reasons were not immediately apparent. The reason for anything was rarely immediately or even eventually apparent, but it existed somewhere, like a moon that had escaped orbit and was no longer a moon but just a piece of something that once was, spinning off into the nothing.”

[currentquotes]

“Sadness is eternal, […] weakness is another word for humanity, and that all will pass, all will pass.”

[currentquotes]

““I mean, when a man reaches... a certain age,” he tried again, “he knows the world is never going to be perfect. He's got used to it being a bit, a bit...”

“Manky?” Nobby suggested…

“Exactly,” said Colon. “Like, it's never going to be perfect, so you just do the best you can, right? But when there's a kid on the way, well, suddenly a man sees it different. He thinks: my kid's going to have to grow up in this mess. Time to clean it up. Time to make it a Better World. He gets a bit... keen. Full of ginger.””