Kalpa Imperial Quotes

“Why say 'the world is complicated' and stop there? I say the world is complicated but not incomprehensible. Only you have to look at it steadily. Isn't it true a person's shoulder hurts sometimes because they've got a disorder in their stomach? And then what does a stupid doctor do? Order massages for the shoulder. What does a wise doctor do? He takes time to think about it, watches the patient carefully, gives him some medicine for his stomach, and the pain in his shoulder goes away. Better yet, he explains to his patients what they have to do to keep their stomach from getting out of order. One day his patient's going to get old and die, just like himself, just like us, and one day, incredible as it may seem, the Empire's going to die, and how foolish people are who whine about it, and whine about how complicated the world is. A seamstress's room is complicated too, but even at night, with the lights out, she can reach out in the darkness and find the yellow thread, the needles, the pincushion. We couldn't, because we don't know the order things are in, in the seamstress's room. And we can't see the order the world is in. But all the same it's there, right under our eyes.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“As the wise say, a sensible man looks after his garden, and a coward looks after his money; a just man cares about his city and a crazy man cares about the government; and a wise man studies the thickness of fern-fronds.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Lo peor que tiene la tristeza es que es ciega; y lo peor que tiene la cólera es que ve demasiado.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial

“He was a good emperor. I won't say he is perfect, because he wasn't; no, my friends, no man is perfect and an emperor less than anybody, because he holds power in his hands, and power is as dangerous as an animal not fully tamed, dangerous as acid, sweet and fatal as poisoned honey.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“... the more people there are to think a thought, the uglier and more crippled and deformed the poor thought gets.”
― angelica gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“It's much more stimulating to be marginal, to act without recognition, than to receive public thanks.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Los hurones —dijo el gigante de ojos negros—son unos animalillos dorados que tienen cuatro patas y un hocico. Las patas de adelante les sirven para cavar sus ciudades subterráneas, para cazar ratas y para acariciar los alimentos y las crías. Las patas de atrás les sirven para apoyarse sobre la tierra, para levantarse sobre las hembras y para saltar. Las cuatro juntas les sirven para correr, caminar y bailar. El hocico les sirve para husmear, para sostener los bigotes, para comer y para mostrar que son benévolos y simpáticos. También tienen una cola peluda que les sirve para alimentar el orgullo. Justificado por otra parte, porque ¿qué sería de un hurón sin el orgullo de ser hurón? Su característica congénita es la prudencia pero con el tiempo van adquiriendo otra que es la sabiduría. Para ellos todo el mundo es rojo porque tienen los ojos de ese color, que es el más adecuado para los hurones. Les interesan muchísimo la ingeniería y la música. Tienen ciertos dones adivinatorios y les gustaría volar pero hasta ahora no han hecho el intento porque la prudencia se los impide. Son fieles y valientes. Y suelen conseguir lo que se proponen.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial

“And I'd add that every good thing has its disadvantages, and the disadvantage of love is precisely that it leaves room for nothing else, not even the prudence of ferrets.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Even misfortune has its advantages say the wise. Of course the wise say stupid things, because even wisdom has its foolishness, say I.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Three days after that Emperor Ferret signed an insane decree: every man who wished to stay at court must be castrated. He was mad, no doubt of it; but the men who preferred mutilation to leaving the court were madder.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“All these works of the imaginative inventions unfortunately got into chronicles, which were made into books which everybody respected and believed, principally because they were thick, hard to hold, tedious, and old.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Maybe you have to be a bit touched to be a ruler, good or bad. For, as the wise say, a sensible man looks after his garden and a coward looks after his money; a just man cares about his city and a crazy man cares about the government; and a wise man studies the thickness of fern-fronds.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“This tent's open to the south and north, and the roads are broad and lead to green lands and black lands and there's plenty to do in the world - sift flour, hammer iron, beat rugs, plow furrows, gossip about the neighbors, cast fishing nets - but what there is to do here is listen.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“Yes, dangerous: think a little, if you’re capable of thought, and you’ll see that it’s safer to obey a law however stupid it may be than to act freely; because to act freely, unless you’re as wicked as certain emperors, is to seek a just law; and if you make a mistake, you’ve taken the first step towards power, which is what destroys men.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“The little boy met with his teachers and studied history, geography, mathematics, music, strategy, politics, dance, falconry, and all the things an emperor has to know so that later on he can do everything that makes him feel that doing it makes him the emperor.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

“No es tan grande prestigio como cree la gente simple, a cada rato nacen chicos con los ojos abiertos, aunque hay que reconocer que en general vienen al mundo con los ojos sensatamente cerrados.”
― Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was