The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

“Silence. Silence! And in silence ponder the similitudes between cannons and mouths. The simpleton beholds a cannon and phant’sies it an infallible destroyer of foes. But the veteran artilleryman knows that sometimes, when a cannon speaks, it bursts. Especially when it has been loaded in haste. When this occurs, Daniel, the foe is untouched. He may sense a distant gaseous exhalation, not puissant enough to ruffle his periwig. The eager gunner, and all his comrades, are blown to bits. Ponder it, Daniel. And for once in your life, show a trace of discretion.

“I wonder what separates the King from Nell Gwyn?” said the other woman. “Ten inches of sheepgut with a knot in one end—if the King knows what’s good for him!” Tess returned. Thump.

“Poh! You could no more show up at Whitehall without a mistress, than at a duel without a sword!

Minerva accelerates into blue water with power that Daniel can feel in his legs, crashing through the odd rogue swell just as she rammed a pirate-boat earlier today, and, as the sun sets on America, she begins the passage to the Old World sailing large before a quartering wind.

Cinematic scene

was like a pelvis in a breadbasket.

The fighting was imaginary, but the trenches, siege-works, dysentery, and gangrene were real.

He had never seen a cat large enough to eat him before and so he backed out of that tent and continued to wander.

But Jack was not Polish scum of the earth, barefoot and chained to the land, or even French scum of the earth, in wooden clogs and in thrall to the priest and the tax-farmer, but English scum of the earth in good boots, equipped with certain God-given rights that were (as rumor had it) written down in a Charter somewhere, and armed with a loaded gun.

But thoughts of this sort were chased away by others. One of those moments had arrived: Jack had been presented with the opportunity to be stupid in some way that was much more interesting than being shrewd would’ve been.

Damn it! Not for the first time, Jack imagined cutting his own tongue out. His tongue was admired by that small fraction of mankind who, owing to some want of dignity or wit, were willing to let it be known that they admired any part of Jack Shaftoe. And yet if he had merely held it back, reined it in, this blue-eyed woman might still be addressing him as Sir Knight.

evidently, the part of Jack that sought a merry and short life was once again holding sway.

Or: when the men with swords come, run away! Especially if they’ve got Bibles, too.” “Sound advice.” “Even if it means giving up things.” Eliza laughed like a wench. “Ah, now we are coming to a moral, I can sense it.”

confused Irishmen,

We moved around the South of England like Christmas Carolers from Hell.