Tomorrow, the Killing Quotes

“It’s a dangerous thing, pretense. A man ought to know who he is, even if he isn’t proud to be it.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“You grow up reading stories, and you start to think your life is one. Every punchline has a set-up; every action a motive. But that’s horseshit – we’re all just stumbling about blind. You do something and decide why you did it afterward.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“It’s an odd fact about lunatics and junkies, but every one I’d ever met is just dying to share their life wisdom.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“There is a corner of every man’s soul that would prefer him dead. That whispers poison in his ear in the still hours of the evening, puts spurs to his side when he stands atop a ledge. For the weak and the misbegotten, the suggestion alone proves sufficient, and the unfortunate runs himself a hot bath and adds his life-blood to it, or drinks a few pints of backyard whiskey and goes swimming in the canal. But most of us are too stubborn or cowardly to make a clean go of it, and this bit that hates us has to start thinking sly.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Speechifying was never my forte – one on one I can generally figure out what I need to do to get someone moving in my direction, but pool enough of them together and the sheer mass of idiocy becomes immobile.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Really, I have to applaud you. Anyone can kill, but to break a man? To reach inside him and make him something else? That takes talent.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Not a man alive wants to be the weakest link, but curiously, no one gives much of a shit about being the second. Which is to say that once the initial grunt loses his water and breaks out, it’s open season and there’s not much can be done about it.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Mostly, organizations do not reward solving problems – they reward not fucking up, and the easiest way not to fuck up is to do nothing.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“The Twentieth took the hill,' read the histories, a minor escapade barely warranting its single sentence. But let me tell you, if you were a member of the Twentieth you'd feel a hell of a lot different about the whole thing. 'What hill?' you might well find yourself asking, 'and where the hell am I taking it?'

In the front ranks of a vast agglommeration of men, the dust from their footfalls kicking up around your eyes and the hum of their breathing drowning out any other sound, you'd be lucky to recognize the approaching incline.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“The guard's job, like the job of every other organism, singular or collective, is to maintain its existence — to do the bare minimum required to continue doing the bare minimum.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Truth is what the man holding the whip says it is, and justice what the strong do to the weak.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“There was something hollow about him, obvious enough if you looked, though most didn’t. At the time I’d been willing to ignore it, willing even to pretend I didn’t see it. But I was young back then, and stupid. Now I’m only the latter.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“As far as I’m concerned, war is shitting out your insides while boys die in the dark around you. Everything else is storybook fantasy, and you can leave it there.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“Truth is what the man holding the whip says it is, and justice what the strong do to the weak. You think otherwise because you’ve lived your life in a bubble made of money – and you ought to get back there as soon as you can, before the world disabuses you of your innocence in brutal fashion.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“There is a corner of every man’s soul that would prefer him dead. That whispers poison in his ear in the still hours of the evening, puts spurs to his side when he stands atop a ledge. For the weak and the misbegotten, the suggestion alone proves sufficient, and the unfortunate runs himself a hot bath and adds his life-blood to it, or drinks a few pints of backyard whiskey and goes swimming in the canal. But most of us are too stubborn or cowardly to make a clean go of it, and this bit that hates us has to start thinking sly. Have another drink, it says, and maybe one more on top. Polish it off with a hit of breath, and ain’t that man at the end of the bar been giving you the eye all night, all fucking night, and what’s his problem exactly, and why don’t you go over and ask?”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“»Kako se držiš, Wardene?« pitala je.
»Fantastično mi je«, rekao sam pa pao u blato.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“To exist without awareness, that was what you aimed at. Memories worn to irrelevance, the future equally insubstantial.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, The Killing