The King at the Edge of the World Quotes

“History is written by the future, and therefore distorted at its start.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Or. A golden word: "Or." Opportunities, rebirths, other roads.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“There was a deep pleasure in simply knowing what happened to everyone at the end.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“But the reality of power—a field of study Ezzedine had ignored, even as he benefited from it—could not be denied infinitely. He would be subject to its immutable laws whether he studied them or pretended they didn’t exist.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“The highest task of intelligence: to imagine a future and then smooth its approach.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Perhaps men could accustom themselves to living with a small amount of doubt. I think doubt a necessary ingredient to live.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Assume the spy is lying. Even if honest, the spy is reporting what he wishes were true, wishes it so fervently that he believes it to be so. Even if his vision is clear and true, the spy misunderstood what he saw. Even if accurate in his perspective, the spy is only accurately reporting someone else’s lies to him. Even if reporting the truth, his words are badly chosen and imply some other facts when we decipher his letter. Even if accurately viewed and accurately transmitted in language, the spy has only seen one small corner of a vast tapestry, far too little to understand it. Even if the spy has seen it all and portrayed it all in truth, he is too late; events have changed, and his report is no longer of the slightest relevance. Finally, and least likely: The spy has presented to his master in London a perfectly complete, honest, perceptive, accurate, timely, and relevant picture of affairs. But his report is contradicted by three other false reports that arrived the same week, prepared by better writers.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“How maddening to be the king, when men hide the best of themselves for fear of offending and hide their worst from shame, and a king is only allowed to see, for all his power, the bland smile and nodding praise of men at their dullest and most dishonest.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Beale quoted Walsingham, who, newly inventing himself as the master of all the kingdom’s secret affairs, taught that men were “but boxes with spring-hook lids, and within each box more boxes, with more hidden hooks to find and unfasten. Work the next one open, and at once begin looking for a still-smaller latch. Until, at last, one arrives at the heart of the matter, wherein what we seek is cloaked and padded snug in shadows. Unless it be yet another box. We never know with certainty if we have arrived at the end.” Extracting salable information from men was a better life than being someone else’s paid fists, and so Beale trained Geoff in what the vague and distant gentlemen in Whitehall wanted and how to get it. England’s most pressing need was to find out where the Catholics hid and what they planned. “The boxes inside a man will open if you are beloved, but that is very rare. More commonly they feign to love you, the better to blind you from seeing truth. The boxes will of course open for you if they are forced, but then one risks damage to the contents. Boxes open for fear of being forced, and that is an improvement, but then you may not know if you have reached a true or feigned secret. And finally, men will reveal themselves for pleasure, but each time you return, the demand for pleasure will be greater: more drink, more women or boys, more money. “And so, we must confess, no solution works forever. We must repeatedly find new paths to truth, never taking our location in the forest with certainty. Pleasure, force, love, fear: now one, now the other. What we may never afford ourselves ever is the comfort of trust. Ignorance will kill us. Blind trust will kill us. Faith in men will kill us. We must never believe we have arrived at the end. There is too much danger to wallow in such ignorant luxury. Better to assume we are being lied to, always, by enemies far more clever than ourselves.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“In the years since, Dr. Thatcher had viewed the wine and ale as the necessary antidote to the island’s persistent English melancholy, though keener eyes than his (or his own eyes when he was younger) might have guessed they were no antidote but cause.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Matthew Thatcher, in his first year at the hall, had drawn and written guides for the cooks and boys, so that all the baron’s people were, with much effort, brought up to the level of knowledge equal to that of a juvenile squirrel.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World

“Christian kingdoms hate one another and are divided on how best to show their love for Jesus Christ. How mad, you think, to hate over how best to love.”
― Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World