Prosper's Demon

by K.J. Parker

Some people are galvanized into decisive action by a crisis. I get all fogged up, like a cart stuck in soft ground; the wheels turn and turn, but no traction.

Sometimes I’m so stupid, I’m amazed I manage to breathe.

There’s a saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Actually, that’s wrong. Beauty is absolute, but the eye of the beholder”—he closed his good eye, leaving the glass monstrosity staring straight at me—“is capable of weakening or corrupting it.

The trouble is, you can’t always think like Them, just as you can’t walk up a wall like a spider, even though you have legs too. Different sort of legs.

It’s a bizarre but widespread myth that only heroes have good qualities, and the only qualities heroes have are good; villains are, by definition, all bad. Bullshit.

Take the truly dreadful, evil men of history, slaughterers of nations in the name of some twisted ideal. Of necessity you must allow them to have had Faith (which moves mountains, and without which mere works are in vain) and Hope, Loyalty, and Self-Sacrifice in the Name of the Cause, and practically every other noble and glorious characteristic you can possibly think of, except for the small matter of being in the right. . . . (Which—the older I get, the more convinced I am—is just fashion anyhow, like the brims on hats or the trimming of ladies’ sleeves. And if you don’t believe me, just think how much morality has changed—in your lifetime—and then read a little history and ask yourself: Do you really, honestly think these changes will be permanent?)

It’s not something you tell people about, obviously. Not your parents, not your friends, not your dear old uncle or your favorite aunt: I can see the devil in people. I can see the devil in you. And, when you’re just a kid, you don’t know the rules, what’s expected, what is and isn’t done, and there’s nobody to ask, and you’re scared. But you keep on seeing the cat, out of the corner of your eye, and it becomes unbearable not to bark, chase, bite.

it wasn’t often that he had a chance to talk to someone whose mind was so little cluttered with education or accepted opinions— (“You mean I’m stupid.” “Good heavens, no. Just ignorant.”)

And belief, like love and sleep, is something you can’t do anything about. You can’t make it come if you want it, and you can’t make it go if you don’t.

the way I see it, when you’ve got only seventy-odd years maximum, and half of those are going to be spent gradually sliding downhill into arthritis and senility, how the hell can you expect to achieve anything worthwhile?