Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

by Josiah Bancroft

“As headmaster, it was my job to teach children how to think like adults. It was their job, apparently, to teach me to think like a child, to expect the disruption, to anticipate the thumbtack on the chair or the lizard in the drawer.”

Routine is rather like the egg whites in a batter: It imparts little flavor, but it holds everything together.

A bad painter only worries about how his barn looks. He doesn’t work his brush into the nooks and shadows. His barn is handsome enough from the road. But when a wet spring comes, the eaves fall off. Do not neglect inconvenient corners.

I must forgive myself. I must beg the pardons that I owe. And I must decide to make my life more than a tribute to past failures.

When humanity ceases to aspire, it begins to decline. Do you know why the status quo is so tyrannical and nauseating? Because it does not exist! There is no stasis in the world, and certainly not where humans are involved. The status quo is just a pleasing synonym for decay.

“We all have weaknesses. Not everyone has strengths.”