Gnomon

by Nick Harkaway

Just because something is done according to the law does not mean that it is lawful.

Law is made in the image of an ideal. One can make a law that does not reflect that image, and that law may be a law without being lawful.

they accept the sleepless nights of troubled conscience so that everyone else can be safe. No doubt that’s how it always goes with torturers.

the reality is that anonymisation is no more effective than one of those hilarious nose-moustache-and-spectacle sets that are a staple of office parties. With the right parsing, your washing machine can know all sorts of things about you that are private.

we need a better sort of human being, not a more just law. We need to change the way people think.

I teach them reading and disrespect for authority, and I consider my work well done.

in general when you and I each see the colour blue, we do indeed see much the same thing, to the endless disappointment of philosophers.

Mystery allows for dreams and uncertainty for romance, forgetfulness opens the door for forgiveness and even redemption.

Corpses are natural and inevitable citizens of the uncanny valley, the place where what is not alive too closely follows the pattern of what is. The body is not lying there, it has been laid out. The eyes do not stare, the hands do not grasp. This thing is no longer a thing which acts. A corpse is not haunted or residually inhabited save by the implications of the living.

There are many advantages to the end of privacy, and one of them is the obsolescence of social awkwardness.

A shark sees a banker in the water, doesn’t eat him. You know why? Professional courtesy!

“Don’t do that. If you don’t know how it works, you can’t depend on it.” I do know how it works. You don’t. That’s not the same thing.

the very rich get themselves into states of sorrow and horror which are inaccessible without vast fortunes: with insane money comes insanity.

Good rules make good games. Games without rules degenerate.

Oh, yes, for them it is easy to say the

Am I a fraud, then, or a scholar? I am both, of course, as we all are. Half of what I know I do not believe. Half of what I believe I cannot prove. For the rest, I hope to muddle through and my mistakes go without comment.