The Absolute Book
Elizabeth Knox
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Was it possible yet to be poor and live decently? Were young men still sent to die in wars made by old men?”
“The Great God of the Deserts, the God from the Void, sequestered himself many hundreds of years ago. His worshippers had too many competing views of his nature, and it unsettled his mind. That’s a thing that can happen to gods. They’re very impressionable.”
“Odin is best left out of this. We’re not sure what his intentions are. He’s not himself these days. His head has been turned by many new worshippers. Of the wrong kind.’ Jacob thought about that for a bit. The wrong worshippers for Odin. ‘You mean white supremacists with valknuts tattooed on their man boobs?’ ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Your wits seem intact in some matters.”
“Let us think for a moment about Hulagu Khan. His sack of Baghdad’s libraries wasn’t just a gesture of hatred against Islamic culture and Syrian scholarship. He also destroyed the city’s bridges. Hulagu understood the relationship between knowledge and communication, communication and commerce, commerce and power. It is as if he took Baghdad and knocked the teeth out of its head. Not just the teeth that bite, but the teeth that facilitate eating and speech. He crippled the city. Hulagu took treasure and slaves, but he wasn’t a covetous conqueror, he didn’t want to stay and enjoy anything. He just wanted to beat the city down and make sure it stayed down.”
“Taryn sighed. ‘You know, there were always people who found cause for complaint about falling birth rates whenever women in developing nations got educations and the means of supporting themselves.”
“I wish I could make a better job of my clothes. My mother taught me about weather and tides, she taught me eight languages and how to make various medicines, but she never thought to teach me to spin and weave and sew, because I was a boy. It seems silly now.”
“... because what good would it do when a true understanding of what was in store for them couldn't save them from any of it?”
“old horror writers—James, Chambers, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood.”
“There’s no point in just providing a spectacle. There’s no point in changing people’s minds or even their world views, but not having the means to change the world. That’s just acting in bad faith.”
“The tarn was surrounded by tough alpine grasses and thorn bushes with berries of candy pink and cough-drop red. At that camp the party’s fire looked choked and small. And when the moon came out its light shone on and through the blue ice cliffs fastened to the black rock faces of surrounding mountains. The night breeze came as an icy downdraught carrying a scent of hostile nothingness, as if it blew all the way from the stars.”
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