The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel #4)
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Read between July 5 - October 27, 2023
9%
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It was nice to be inside someone’s sanctuary. He’d lived as an interloper for so long. He smiled as the dog calmed.
9%
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It was strange to find so much luxury so scarcely possessed.
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Their wealth was apparently so boundless that treasure no longer held any value.
23%
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Nearly fifty years of survival has taught me that often the best time to run away is shortly before you arrive.
28%
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opportunity, like misfortune, could not be ceded.
29%
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“A poet is just a tramp with a thesaurus,”
29%
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denial is a desperate imitation of hope.
38%
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One could feel clearheaded and still be deceived. It seemed a lesson deserving of further consideration at a later time.
41%
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Disobedience begins with discourse.”
43%
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wonder only ceases when examination ends.
43%
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Stolen affection is a bitter investment,
44%
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I try not to dwell on my mistakes because it doesn’t change them; it only changes me.
44%
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“We all forget we’re mortal now and then. We have to, to keep from going mad. But I never forget the people I love, and that keeps me from taking myself for granted.
45%
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Sometimes the best way to protect your belongings is to shroud them in something foul.
46%
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How one small human could make such an overwhelming volume of chaos
47%
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“Then one day, they finally do escape, and you don’t feel free. You just feel left behind.”
50%
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Virtue tires; evil does not.
53%
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cynics don’t belong in the classroom. Teaching requires a certain amount of idealism.
54%
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To take the throne, you can’t begin by posing as a king. You must first introduce yourself as a servant:
55%
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in the end, there’s nothing eloquent about death.
60%
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The past was full of traps of guilt, dread, and bewilderment. It was better to be distracted by the lives of others;
61%
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There’s no sweeter music, I think, than when we sing for our lives.
62%
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Often it is while skirting inconvenience that we encounter catastrophe.
64%
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It was strange to feel so obvious and yet be so readily overlooked.
65%
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True conspiracies are inflexible and susceptible to discovery, but imaginary plots are ever evolving and, as a result, invulnerable. That is to say, conspiracies are perishable, paranoia is not.
66%
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I know I must trade love for duty, but I’m afraid that will only work if I do not hold you like this or let your voice warm my ear.”
66%
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It is constraint, purpose, and labor that gives a soul its shape.
71%
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the human race is motivated not by aspiration with all its sharp edges and long drops but by the desire for certainty, inclusion, consistency.
73%
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what distinguishes the amateur from the professional is not a single stroke of success but rather the lengthy education of repeated failure.
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Praise was like chocolate; a little made you euphoric, too much just made you sick.