Navola

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Symbol and ritual are as much a part of a man’s promise as his coin

Fools are dangerous. They are dangerous to you and they are dangerous to their allies. They are especially dangerous to themselves.

“I think the wisdom of one moment is the foolishness of the next. If you are very lucky, you will find one scrap of wisdom as the cauri bird found the emerald, and if you are truly wise, you will know when to throw that jewel away as nothing but glass.”

“The things you think, Davico, they keep you from living. If you live in fear, you are not living. You are dead already. Dead long before any danger comes for you.”

Do not worry about safety, think instead about stupidity. I have found that a man who is not stupid is also a man who is generally safe.

“Never discard a friend when your table is full…” my father began to quote. “…for you will find no friends when your table is empty,” I finished for him.

Love not the music of your own voice, Merio had once instructed. Love the music of your opponent’s. Wait. Listen. And then, Cazzetta had added, wait a little longer. Draw the silence as you would a hunting bow. Draw it until it sings with tension and desperation to break, let it tremble there, desperate for release. Love that silence, for it is your friend. If you are patient, if you wait, a false man will often reveal himself into that silence.

A woman must never let a man see her truth, for he will find her horrifying.

“Take these bones and remember that if you are not feared, you will always be tested.”

With all interests represented, politics becomes a fairer sport, if only because everyone is equally corrupt.”

We are animals first, and to deny this is to deny our true selves.

“That is always the difficulty of truly worthy allies. An ally who is truly valuable is also truly powerful. Powerful enough to withhold their power, or even to betray. Any ally worth having will have the ability to choose their own path, for an ally is not a slave. An ally—a true ally—chooses you.

It is a painful thing to abandon all excuse. To accept that all responsibility is yours alone. To know that to forge through, or fail, is simply what is.

Power does not change a man’s nature, but only makes it more so.

“Do not make promises,” she said. “Promises are for people more powerful than you or me.”