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worship is nothing more than the surrender to things beyond our control.
‘I have faith that what’s worst in humanity isn’t hard to find – it’s all around us, sour as a leaking bladder, day after day. It’s the stink we all get used to.
‘But that’s the whole point about, er, desire. It’s mostly brainless. Most of the world’s tragedy is found in this one misunderstanding. We tie too much to it, you see. Things like loyalty and precious intimacy, love and possession, and sooner or later it all goes wrong.
For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives. You can stand on them and stare out at future’s horizon, or you can be crushed beneath their weight. You can take a pick in hand and break them all apart, until you’re left with nothing but rubble. You can crush that down into dust and watch the wind blow it away. Or you can worship those wretched stories, carving idols and fascinating lies to lift your gaze ever higher, and all those falsehoods make hollow and thin the ground you stand on.
The wishes of a child were fragile things, and she now knew that none ever survived the hard, jostling indifference that came with the bitter imperatives of adulthood: the stone-eyed rush to find elusive proofs of worth, or to reach at last the swollen satiation that was satisfaction.
Choices fall away, without you even noticing, until there are very few left, and you realize that you are nothing but what you are.’
‘Romance is the negotiation of possibilities, towards that elusive prize called love.
‘You can win even when you lose. Because, even in losing, you might still succeed in making your point. In saying that you refuse the way they want it.’
‘If all honest observation ends up sounding critical, is it the honesty you then reject, or the act of observation?’
Defiance could hold its shape, even when it was made of nothing but cinders and ash. Anger could look hot to the touch, when in truth it was lifeless and cold. In this way, the world could deceive. It could lie, and in lying it invited delusion. It invited the idea that what it was was true. In this way, the world could make belief a fatal illness.
Nostalgia was like a disease, one that crept in and stole the colour from the world and the time you lived in. Made for bitter people. Dangerous people, when they wanted back what never was.
In a war between fanatics and sceptics, the fanatics win every time.”’
When wisdom drips blood fools stand triumphant.”’
He wondered at all those lives, the way few would meet the gazes of their fellows, as if crowds demanded wilful anonymity, when the truth was they were all in it together – all these people, facing much the same struggles, the same fears. And yet, it seemed, each one was determined to survive them alone, or with but a few kin and friends offering paltry allegiance. Perhaps they each believed themselves unique, like a knot-stone in the centre of the world’s mill wheel, but the truth was there were very few who could truly make claim to such a pivotal existence.
A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred. And those moments where love and community burgeoned forth, the cynics descended like vultures eager to feed, and the skies soured, and the moment died away.
if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future’s world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.
Our worlds are so small. They only feel endless because our minds can gather thousands of them all at once. But if we stop moving, if we hold to one place, if we draw breath and look around … each one is the same. Barring a few details. Lost ages are neither more nor less profound than the one we live in right now. We think it’s all some kind of forward momentum, endless leaving behind and reaching towards. But the truth is, wherever we find ourselves – with all its shiny gifts – we do little more than walk in circles.
‘We should all live a life of hobbies. Doing only what gives us pleasure, only what rewards us in secret, private ways.’
‘You can’t steer anyone away from the path they’re going to take. You can show ’em that there’s plenty of other paths – you can do that much – but past that? They’ll go where they go.’
