Mardi > Mardi's Quotes

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“He knew the weather did not make a place what it was; it only helped to change people’s moods and sometimes to make things more bearable. In the end, it was all just mood lighting, painting over the grey truths of this dreary canvas of a town.”
― Tom Ward, A Departure

“These conditions affect millions all over the world everyday. We’re essentially refugees from a natural disaster. It’s not quite the apocalypse. We’re no different to the millions fleeing a war zone or a volcanic eruption, it just happens that we’re on an island and have become cut off from the rest of the world, but that’s not to say we won’t reconnect. When we do we will have learnt something from all of this, and that is the most important thing, what we carry with us. It is through our studying and a hope to better understand our world that we can adapt,”
― Tom Ward, A Departure

“This sort of thing has to be worldwide. It’s not surprising, the amount of rubbish we pump into the atmosphere and dump into the sea, the animals we’ve driven to extinction and forests we’ve destroyed. It’s not surprising the planet would want to get rid of us. The Ice Age did a good job of it before, but we crept back, surviving epidemics and pandemics, multiplying and spreading across the surface of the planet. Punching holes in the atmosphere and throwing bombs at each other so we can become richer. Human beings are the most selfish race this planet has ever known, and it’s all because we’ve outsmarted everything else. Still, we couldn’t stop this thing, that’s how smart we really are. We’re nothing in the grand scheme of things,” he said, pointing to the stars that shone through the window. “Human life is but a twinkle in the eye of the universe. Our lives can be snatched away as easily as they’re given.”
― Tom Ward, A Departure

“Grief and pain could make you either cruel or generous; the only common denominator was loss.”
― Kimi Eisele, The Lightest Object in the Universe

“None of us are immune from life’s tragic moments. Like the small rubber boat we had in basic SEAL training, it takes a team of good people to get you to your destination in life. You cannot paddle the boat alone. Find someone to share your life with. Make as many friends as possible, and never forget that your success depends on others.”
― William H. McRaven, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World

“Scientology is not just a matter of belief, the recruits were constantly told; it is a step-by-step scientific process that will help you overcome your limitations and realize your full potential for greatness. Only Scientology can awaken individuals to the joyful truth of their immortal state. Only Scientology can rescue humanity from its inevitable doom. The recruits were infused with a sense of mystery, purpose, and intrigue. Life inside Scientology was just so much more compelling than life outside.”
― Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief

“Belief in the irrational is one definition of faith, but it is also true that clinging to absurd or disputed doctrines binds a community of faith together and defines a barrier to the outside world.”
― Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

“an old Zen proverb: “When the master points at the Moon, many people never see it at all, they only look at the master.”
― Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief

“I thought I could organise freedom.
How Scandinavian of me.
–Björk”
― Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here

“The fundamental difference between an ordinary person and a Jehovah’s Witness is that the life of a Witness is effectively micromanaged by a religious hierarchy based in America.”
― Lloyd Evans, The Reluctant Apostate: Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Comes at a Price

“God is not old. He/she/they were invented, all across the world, not more than ten thousand years ago. When human societies were small, they were close-knit and moral boundaries were clear. In a tribe of twelve, if you stole your fellow caveperson’s favorite club or wheel prototype, it was known and could be rectified. You were always seen, and all was known. But as societies grew, the wayward could do things unobserved, and crimes could be committed. So it became necessary to invent a being who saw everything. Watch out, God’s creators said, you are being watched by a morally righteous eye in the sky—even when no one else is around. (The concept of Santa works in a similar way.)”
― Dave Eggers, The Every

“Now, the decline of God and the imminent collapse of so many faiths seems tied directly to the rise of surveillance, and the collective enforcement of social norms through instant global shaming. God promised punishment after death. Now it’s meted out in minutes. Karma was vague; digital shaming is specific. And I would argue people prefer the reliable nature of morality-through-surveillance over the ephemeral promises of the gods/Gods of the past. Prayers to God were rarely answered, while shouts into cyberspace always receive a response, even if misspelled and hateful. Everything God offered—answers, clarity, miracles, baby names—the internet does better. Do you know how many times What is the meaning of life? was searched on your platforms last year? Twenty-one billion times. Every one of those queries got a reply. The one question that could not be answered, until now, is Am I good?”
― Dave Eggers, The Every

“The lukewarm fingers of nostalgia stroked the hearts of the old, garnishing the smells and the sounds and the fires with old truths turned to dull uncertainties in today’s environment.”
― Moses Isegawa, Abyssinian Chronicles

“We all walked around with skeletons rattling in our cupboard-like souls, editing carefully what we revealed, depending on whom we were talking to. We always second-guessed our audience and told them what they wanted to hear, or what would cause the least damage or best enhance our image.”
― Moses Isegawa, Abyssinian Chronicles

“words were beaten into weapons,”
― Moses Isegawa, Abyssinian Chronicles

“To me, life was lived day by day, and the actions of yesterday might have nothing to do with what happened the following day. Life was a journey of discovery, and character was a variable that kept veering left and right in search of the perfect way for a particular day.”
― Moses Isegawa, Abyssinian Chronicles

“What do you do when a country is knocked off its axis? Unhinged from its moorings by radicalism, which by its very nature arrives as the cold breath of death against your neck.”
― Evette Davis, 48 States

“Nobody ever values the thing they’re good at, just what they wish they could do better.”
― Hugh Howey, Across the Sand

“I know you like the legends of the old gods. Are they true? Does it matter if they are true? Or does it only matter that they inspire a true feeling in you?”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, Navola

“Memory was not the word. Memories inhabit the minds of men. They are the myths we use to explain ourselves to ourselves: who we are, where we come from, where we go”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, Navola

“Enjoy this moment, now! Not those twisty turns inside your brains.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, Navola

“I imagined that I could almost feel the palazzo itself breathing, a lazy heavy rhythm in time with the breaths of its inhabitants, all of us drowsy and insensate under the high sun. All at rest.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, Navola

“The city was not a city, it was many cities, quadrazzo by quadrazzo, street by street, open sores and powdered beauty all up against one another.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, Navola

“often wondered where the desire for self-destruction came from and why it was so powerful.”
― Patrick MacDonald, Darkness Falling

“You do that to a people then they become subhuman and if you believe a people aren’t remotely the same as you, then it becomes easier to treat them badly – they don’t suffer the same, do you see? They’re not human after all, so how could they?”
― Patrick MacDonald, Darkness Falling

“how thin is the veneer of civilisation?”
― Patrick MacDonald, Darkness Falling

“people who rise to success on their own never stop feeling the fear at the door, and the people lucky enough to be born into comfort and safety never become fully realized people in the first place. And who is to say which is better? No matter which way it is for you, it is a system that fucks you in the ass over and over, in perpetuity, and who is to say which is better?”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Long Island Compromise

“Party members can’t think independently. They have lost the capacity to dream of something different. If there is any hope – I don’t say that there is – it must lie in the proles.”
― Sandra Newman, Julia