Russian Sleeper Cell Quotes

“We now stand at the very edge of exchanging our republic for a theocracy, replacing our president of the people with a new king: a tsar. Do we have a republic? A monarchy? A theocracy? Have we appointed a new tsar and replaced our Congress with a Duma? No, we have a republic if we can keep it.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“We have to do the right thing, even if we aren’t heard, even if the ship still sinks, even if it means we lose it all in the process.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Nadya,” Caspian said as she reached for the door, “what do we do next?” “Tell the truth,” she said to him. “As Maximos said, that’s the only thing that can dispel the lies.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Caspian, you’ll never be able to pick the lock,” Nadya said. “Why is that?” “Because you’ll never be an outlaw, you’ll never be one of us. You don’t have the magic.” Nadya was visibly shaken. “You can’t break the lock because you are one of the pillars that uphold the powers of oppression.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“You all think it’s so clever, just have the baby anyway, maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you can give it to someone else if you are heartless, does that really sound clever to you? I can go through all of those body changes and trauma and possibly die in childbirth so that your conscience can be clean—about what? My own personal choices about my own body. Fuck that. And fuck you.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Actually, I don’t understand,” Caspian said. “How could you understand?” she snapped back at him. “But honestly, why should your understanding matter? Do you have to sympathize with everything in order for you to care about it? You have to have experienced the thing for someone to be considered equal to you? Empathy isn’t a fucking thing they teach in seminary?”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Even in times of war,” Caspian said, “we attend to the wounded on both sides. Otherwise, are we any different than them? He is God’s to judge now.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“I must ask you to leave. Not because I do not love you but because I must protect the next generation. It is your time to die, not theirs. Go, I bless you in your efforts; die with brilliance and grace.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“With his misinformation campaigns, he has bolstered a false kind of patriotism on the right and so weakened any love for country on the left that both are willingly handing the nation over into the hands of Tsar Putin, one by way of a fake news war paint known as nationalism and the other by defeatism.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Learn to love it, child. Don’t despise it because these white nationalists, these terrorists, have coopted it. Patriotism and nationalism are not the same evil.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“The Republic is not for one person to save. It has always been the People’s and it is for all of us to save if we are able.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“I thought you said you were staying out of it.” Caspian looked suspicious. “How would you know that?” “I said I was staying out of it, not that I was an idiot who wouldn’t know where his enemy lies.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Caspian hadn’t even spent too much time thinking about the world of trouble he would be in back at home, that he was likely excommunicated. That he had let his friend down, or that, in reality, the bishop had let him down first.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“am not claiming to be a moral or righteous man. I have done many immoral things and likely will do many more. But there are certain things I cannot abide and we are careening quickly toward some of those same events that, I would hope, any person with even the spark of a conscience would stand up against, regardless of the cost.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Yes, the tsar needed to be removed and make way for freedom for all people, but not like this. What happened to those children was a warning of what was to come at the hands of our new leaders. The Soviets gave us another kind of tyranny. We traded one type of oppression for another.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“A great deal of offense happens in this world because someone has violated an invisible rule we have curated for ourselves and then attempted to impose on everyone else.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“An argument could be made that much of the suffering in this world comes from the fact that society doesn’t believe that rules are meant to be broken at all, no matter how many folks use it as a throwaway phrase during moments of inconvenience. Every day we see injustices happen all around us that could be resolved by breaking a rule and we collectively do nothing. Wars rage and famines starve, children are slaughtered, and we remain silent. We fear consequences or the crosshairs moving away from the oppressed and toward us, so we let terror win and choke out our voice. Then, when someone does stand up and say, “These rules are fucked,” we bury them in the back of the graveyard of history and then name a road after them. We know that rules aren’t meant to be broken and that there will be harsh consequences when we do break them. So we say, “Rules are meant to be broken,” as we steal two coins from the take-a-penny cup at the convenience store and place them on the eyes of a dead kindergartner. God bless America.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Whenever Caspian didn’t know what to do, he often liked to carry on these debates in his head of all the things he would like to say but rarely ever said.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“he couldn’t imagine having to go back to school to learn a new trade or starting life over in his forties. Instead, he decided that any opportunity was better than none, even if he did feel royally fucked about the whole ordeal at this particular juncture.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Instead, they were surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest, and if a gunshot goes off in the woods and no Karen is there to ask the local neighborhood association Facebook group if that was gunshots or a firework, did a gunshot really go off?”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell

“Every day we see injustices happen all around us that could be resolved by breaking a rule and we collectively do nothing. Wars rage and famines starve, children are slaughtered, and we remain silent. We fear consequences or the crosshairs moving away from the oppressed and toward us, so we let terror win and choke out our voice. Then, when someone does stand up and say, “These rules are fucked,” we bury them in the back of the graveyard of history and then name a road after them. We know that rules aren’t meant to be broken and that there will be harsh consequences when we do break them. So we say, “Rules are meant to be broken,” as we steal two coins from the take-a-penny cup at the convenience store and place them on the eyes of a dead kindergartner. God bless America.”
― Nathan Monk, Russian Sleeper Cell