The Carpet Makers Quotes

“But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“It only becomes art if it touches other people.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Nothing is more difficult to exterminate than religion, no matter how false it may be.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“It seems to me, dear sister, that you still think the important thing is to become like everybody else. In reality, the important thing is to become different from the others, to discover your uniqueness. You're a rebel by birth, but that doesn't mean much. Your own rebellion is still ahead of you.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“I was born into this world without knowing what life was all about. Only power promised fulfillment in life, and I have pursued it--long enough to recognize that it's a false promise and that this road leads to nothing. But I tried. Even if we get no answers to our questions, it is the inalienable right of every living being to search for them--by all means, on all paths, and with all strength. What I did was only what I had a right to do.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“You think you’ve uncovered a great mystery. You have no idea. You haven’t even scratched the surface of the history of the Empire.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Your problem, Nagrant,' he declared, 'is that your education was unconnected with the practical reality of life. You grew up believing that rules are more important than all the facts you could ever uncover, and that the slightest disobedience is deadly.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Nargant often noticed how his own thought processes made endless twists and turns, even to reach totally insignificant decisions, and how much energy he wasted, almost without thinking about it, trying to protect himself on all sides against all eventualities.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Did the fleet of the Empire have that ability—to destroy an entire solar system?” Yes, Emparak thought. They did it often enough.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Down here you could touch time with your hands.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“The politics of the day didn't interest her. What captivated her were historical events and developments and the millennia that preceded them.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“They were failing by the hundreds and thousands in their attempt to fill the shoes of a man like the Emperor, but she dared to call the Archive chaos. What did she call the mess the self-appointed Provisional Council was creating out there? What word did she have for the infinite loss of direction in the souls of the people whose lives they had destroyed? What word for the deterioration of morality, for the spreading degeneracy? How would she describe the results of their limitless failure?”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers

“Now he had to decide--what was the right thing to do? Something that required courage. Something that was frightening, because the unknown was lying in wait on the other side.”
― Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers