Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)

by Gene Wolfe

The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.

Or that the authority that punishes no one while there exists a chance for reformation will punish everyone when there is no possibility anyone will become the better for it.”

It is said that it is the peculiar quality of time to conserve fact, and that it does so by rendering our past falsehoods true.

We say, “I will,” and “I will not,” and imagine ourselves (though we obey the orders of some prosaic person every day) our own masters, when the truth is that our masters are sleeping. One wakes within us and we are ridden like beasts, though the rider is but some hitherto unguessed part of ourselves.

She possessed the hopeful, hopeless courage of the poor, which is perhaps the most appealing of all human qualities; and I rejoiced in the flaws that made her more real to me.

“If we could have our way, no man would have to go roving or draw blood. But women did not make the world. All of you are torturers, one way or another.”

That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.

What are you?” “A great seer. A great liar, like every man whose foot is in a trap.”