Javs > Javs's Quotes

“The most it ever seems we know how to do with time, is to waste it.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you're not helping people, just servicing the machine.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“I know now that there is something dead inside me though I cannot remember exactly when it died.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“God, but he lied beautifully; it was a masterclass. If I hadn't been concentrating so hard on my own deceit, I would have stood up and applauded.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“Complexity should be your excuse for inaction.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“For a second, my hand touched yours, but that second is gone, and cannot be seen, heard or felt ever again. This second is gone, too, the moment in which I spoke by your side. It is dead. Let it die.”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“She was good with a needle–I hardly felt it go in. Euphoria is, I believe, the term they use to describe the sensation, and upon experience I found it to be an entirely useless definition, as it relies on comparatives that are not apt to the situation. A happiness beyond compare, a contentment beyond understanding, a bliss, a travelling, a freeing of the mind from the flesh–these are all, in their ways, an appropriate description of the process, but they mean nothing, for no recollection can re-create them and no substitute mimic them. So, having known what euphoria is, it remains precisely that–a word with longing attached, but no meaning when actually experiencing the thing. My arms and legs were heavy, my mouth was dry, and I did not care, for my mouth was not mine. I knew that I was still and time was moving, and wondered how it had taken me so long to comprehend that this was the nature of time itself, and wished I had a notebook to hand so I could jot down these thoughts–these profound, beautiful thoughts I had never thought before, which would, I felt certain, revolutionise the way mankind worked. I watched Akinleye inject herself, and inject the maid, who lay with her head in Akinleye’s lap, a dutiful kitten as the drug did its work, and I wanted to explain to them that I’d had the most extraordinary idea about the nature of reality, seen the most incredible truth, if only I could make others understand it!”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August