Black Sun Quotes

“Somewhere on his prudent little journey to power, Efremov had taught himself to smile. It was an underhand weapon to use on people, rather like silence on the telephone, but effective. Efremov smiled now, a thin smirk. Though he outranked nobody still seated at the table, his presence caused every man to stiffen and compose his face. Theirs was the quiet not of insolence, but of fear.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun

“He remained convinced that belief was the only gravity that could hold his contradictory world of duty and lies together. But he was no longer sure he had preserved enough of it to make the center hold.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun

“Just a very big bomb, a weapon of war, you say. Wrong. They were once. But now there are too many of them. They are too powerful. Nuclear weapons are the end of human history in all places, for all time.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun

“You know what I can never understand about you Russians? You love anarchy, each one of you. I know you fuckers. You all have rebel souls. Every one of you wants to screw the system. But together, you have a terror of chaos. You’ll go to any lengths to prevent it. I always wondered why. Perhaps because you know yourselves too well. You know what you’ll do if suddenly nobody is watching over you with a stick. That’s my profound thought for the day.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun

“Maria’s man Guri was the immediately recognizable king of the sandwich bar, lord of all the sausages. The man was big and swarthy, with waved dark hair parted like a razor slash. He was broad and thick-faced and violent, with pressed-together lips and a patriarch’s paunch. The Georgian wore a stained cook’s apron and barked orders to the waitresses as though to junior members of his extended family.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun

“A midlevel Party apparatchik, no vices beyond the usual, on paper a typical example of the species. His official photo showed a bloated face with a bully’s straight gaze and the resentful pout of a much-commanded man. Like most officials of his level, Belov’s rise had been punctuated by a flurry of official complaints from colleagues and citizens, swirling in his wake like candy wrappers in the backwash of a Party sedan. Complaints, the tiny revenge of the powerless. Everyone wrote them.”
― Owen Matthews, Black Sun