The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel #4)

by Josiah Bancroft

Anger that survives until morning is either righteous or insidious. Either way, it must be dealt with.

I hope to be rich one day, but not miserably so. I once rubbed elbows with a gold-drenched lord. He had a staff of dozens, a harem of admirers, and a seat at every table. Yet I have never met a more paranoid, anxious, and isolated wretch.

The only medicine for gout is moderation; the only cure for excess is charity.

“No one asked for you to be born, either, but we’re all making do,”

To lead is to come last. A chef only eats when the dishes are done, and a captain goes down with the ship.

“And anyone who argues will have to clean up after my dog!” Runa added, raising a finger high in the air. “And I warn you: She’s an old dog with a very messy behind!”

Scavenge is such an unlovely word. It conjures up visions of vultures and grave robbers. We only take what the dead could not carry.

Perhaps we are not responsible for the crimes of our fathers, but make no mistake, we are beneficiaries of those crimes, which makes us answerable to its victims.

“It’s quite a steal, when you think about it. I would’ve died a hundred times for my kids. Just the once seems a bargain.”

Byron knew that a home was an ephemeral thing. Home was a feeling engorged with memory, a sense of history enlarged by fondness and family and familiar things. Home was a ritual that harmonized with the melody of a day. It was a healer of all the humiliations and failures that must be borne in public but can only be mended in private. A home was the nest of the soul, a refuge more sacred than any chapel or mausoleum. But what made a home was far less sentimental. It was drudgery, pure and simple, that made a home.

As if anyone could hold a monopoly on anxiety.

A king hopes his subjects won’t listen to his enemies; an emperor ensures that they won’t.

Somehow, the addition of an infant to the crew seemed to shrink the available manpower by two. How plus one could equal minus two had been something of a mystery to Byron. Surely only a single soul was required to take care of an infant at any given moment. And yet, everyone seemed to be constantly running back and forth on some essential errand in service of the pink-faced, colicky despot.

Those who are first to emerge from the puddle of unconsciousness tend to dominate the weak; the first social collectives are usually ruled by bullies, who naturally gravitate toward tyranny; the first technologies are turned toward destructive efforts almost at once. In other words, the discovery that fire could cook your food was quickly followed by the revelation that it could also cook your enemies.”

When you think little of yourself, everyone else’s opinion of you becomes more important than your own.

I hope you don’t slouch your way through your life, trying to hide the greatness in you for fear of putting someone else off.

“I thought I had more time. No, that’s not quite right: I wanted more time. But some clocks cannot be rewound.

You could resent yourself for your imperfect enjoyment of your life, but that seems to me like a never-ending chore. A thankless one, too.

Neglect never patched a crack, nor denial plugged a hole. Do not forget your imperfections; they have not forgotten you.