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

by Josiah Bancroft

We painted cavern walls to own the shadows with our palms. We carved the ground with county lines to legislate our qualms. We drew on heaven human shapes to stake the cosmic plot. Man would write upon his soul if pen could reach the spot.

Never was a line untangled by heaves and tugs. An unwanted knot requires a flexible stratagem to undo. One must give a little here to make some progress there. So it is with most of life’s snarls.

egotists respected other egotists.

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

Judge us from the kangaroo court of your good luck?

all of us here have made the acquaintance of certain persons that enjoy torturing the weak.”

“My friends, the Tower is trembling. We can hide in our salons, in our picnics and painting, but it only grows worse. Something must be done. The Old Vein is expiring. We can cower behind oaths and excuses, but it does not change the fact that many are suffering and dying. 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. The Brick Layer’s will is not in doubt. Our devotion is.

But opportunity, like misfortune, could not be ceded.

Sometimes the fear of change is just an expression of love for the life you had.

pLot fAileD nU PlAn finN will sAbOtag furnAcE wile tunNelinG no cHance of rEPair sMoke and SMotHer uS Out I wIll be OUr EYes on briDgE on My maRk oVR weElhous horN sIgnl wOrd Is MArya wE sory lot Of martYrs The best Senlin could hope for was a surreptitious response, some small sign that they had received his proposal and agreed to it. It seemed a flimsy wish. And if no confirmation came, he would have no choice but to trust that they would act when he seized Marat’s trumpet and shouted Marya’s name at the end of his life.

“Forgive me, Captain, but I don’t think there’s any shame in doing your best. Of course, in hindsight, it’s easy to see a better course, a wiser choice. When I look back, I see a thousand small missteps that altogether brought me here. I try not to dwell on my mistakes because it doesn’t change them; it only changes me. I cannot live inside those awful moments, those naive blunders and prideful errors. It would drive me mad if I did.”

don’t think there’s any shame in doing your best. Of course, in hindsight, it’s easy to see a better course, a wiser choice. When I look back, I see a thousand small missteps that altogether brought me here. I try not to dwell on my mistakes because it doesn’t change them; it only changes me. I cannot live inside those awful moments, those naive blunders and prideful errors. It would drive me mad if I did.”

Travelers who mistake inconvenience for catastrophe or confuse a detour for derailment only deplete their mettle. There is no need to embellish difficulty; hardship is quite content to embroider itself.

Civility, wisdom, and empathy required growth, sacrifice, a willingness to change, but evil never grew up. Evil was as callow and foolish at the end of itself as it was at the start.

It is true that what distinguishes the amateur from the professional is not a single stroke of success but rather the lengthy education of repeated failure.

“The point is to try! The only enemy is complacency;

“I can’t help it if your conscience has embarrassed you.

Because the more distant you grow from everyone else, the stranger you become to yourself.

“Now, the trick to climbing a tree is that, first, you have to give it a good look up and down.” Now barefoot, Marya felt the grass, soft as fur, beneath her toes. “You have to picture your trajectory, plan your ascent. It’s good to be prepared. Of course, there are some risks you can’t take while standing on the ground. Branches snap. You lose your grip.” Olivet frowned and gummed upon her tongue. Though Marya knew the display was unrelated, she couldn’t help but respond conversationally: “Oh, I know. It’d be nice if you could just leap straight to the top or be carried up the whole way. Honestly, the easiest way to surmount a tall tree is to be born in a high nest. But for ones like you and me, the only thing that happens quickly is a fall.”

Had misery ever been cured by selfishness?

She marveled to think that every stitch of clothing and stick of furniture in the wasteland that surrounded them had been carried up from the ground on the back of a hod: a soul born and worn down just to cast a single pearl upon an unwanted trove.

soul born and worn down just to cast a single pearl upon an unwanted trove.

the principal consumer of sheep is not wolves but shepherds.

She raised her engine, made a fist, and rapped upon the steel three times. The gatehouse tolled with the familiar tattoo: hard, soft, hard. Senlin put his knuckles to the window and replayed the signal that spoke what could not be said, acknowledged what could not be expressed, forgave what could not be forgotten.

“I told you, Tom. I told you this is where we’d rendezvous—top of it all, end of the world.”

“But don’t we have to know where we’re going?” Adam coughed out a hollow laugh. “I’ve never known where I was going. I can hardly expect that to change now.”

Sometimes, it was difficult to tell the difference between independence and imprisonment. The two could look an awful lot alike.

Of course, the only reliable means she knew for discerning freedom from captivity was to try the door.

Like a drowning soul floundering at sea, the hand of history reaches for objects of convenience rather than perfection. And so are heroes gripped.

We don’t have to know everything about everything to enjoy the world. I don’t have to know all about stamens and ovules to enjoy the fragrance of a flower, or how to build a house to appreciate a roof over my head. But understanding nothing, or very little of the world, and having no desire to understand more than you already do, well, that invites entitlement. What was a privilege becomes a right. And that, I think, is dangerous.”

“The reason we study and learn, the reason we take only what we need, is because we have all been given a great gift—the gift of civilization, the gift of understanding, the gift of mastery over our environment—and if we misuse these, if we take these things for granted, the ones who will suffer most are our sons and daughters. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of our ancestors’ labor. We should relish the pudding. But that privilege does not relieve us of our responsibility to be faithful custodians of the world we leave for our children.”