Atlas Paradox Quotes

To know what people really are and not destroy them is savagely remarkable. She has exceptional restraint.

One thing at a time. Murder first and then scholarly pursuits.

The presumption that she was in pieces just because she had once been broken was a dangerous one

Karma was routinely misrepresented as the scales of justice when really, it was a matter of eternal continuity.

Olympus was empty. The gods were already here.

Do you think they know what it means to love?" his projection-self mused aloud to him. "That it isn't the simple joy of fondness, I mean. In fact it's violent, destructive. It means to cut the heart out of your chest and give it to someone else.

Are you losing your mind?” “Yes,” Parisa replied with a roll of her eyes. “I’m succumbing to madness, thanks. And you?” “Making progress.

When you no longer exist, you will have left nothing behind.

No, Nico, I would have lit on fire anyone with even the slightest intention of harming you, and that is the kind of friend I am, when I choose to be a friend.

The moment you let yourself love, Reina Mori, it will be the death of you. I promise you that.

People always craved power - that was a constant of humanity, a truer rule than any law of physics. If they weren't given power, they took it. And however lofty and moral their foundational creed, people historically did not choose to give it away.

Most people would assume Gideon was a pessimist because hello, look at the obvious (everything fucking sucked) but actually he wasn’t, because he enjoyed being alive. He loved being awake. He missed being awake.

This was just the world. You trusted people, you loved them, you offered them the dignity of your time and the intimacy of your thoughts and the fraility of your hope and they either accepted it and cared for it or they rejected it and destroyed it and in the end, none of it was up to you. This was just what you got. Heartbreak was inevitable. Disappointment assured.

Nobody asked for any of this. What they're born into. We just get what we get and that's a tragedy in itself. Everybody's got one.

To feel the feelings of someone else is to exhaust yourself with double the pain,

You know, being routinely accused of psychopathy is starting to get on my nerves,” Parisa said dryly.

You have a problem,” Parisa observed, arching a brow. “Nonsense. I have a hobby,” said Callum. “It’s everyone else who has a problem.

We can’t help clinging to our origins, Callum said. The past always seems more ordered, Rhodes. It always seems clearer, more straightforward, easier to understand. We have a craving for it, that sense of simplicity, but only an idiot would ever chase the past, because our perception of it is false—it was never that the world was simple. Just that in retrospect it could be known, and therefore understood.

I see. And what can I do for you, Professor?” “Die,” she said. “Slowly. Painfully.” “Understandable,” said Atlas.

He was so British she could spread him on a crumpet.

Like maybe he could ask her something silly and trifling, like if she’d ever looked at the moon and felt empty or if she knew how it felt to set foot in a country with a language she didn’t speak, and she wouldn’t have to tell him the answer, because he would just know it. He would just know.

Because Tristan would rather have whatever version of Libby she had become than face the prospect of having no Libby at all.

(If you do not know precisely where impossibility begins and ends, then of course it cannot constrain you.)

… other people’s view of her said far more about them than it ever did about her. She was very accustomed to seeing herself through someone else’s eyes—

The devils were all here, in this house.

Dinner together? Our last night?” “A last supper?” Parisa said. “Typically those are hit-or-miss.” “Nobody bring knives,” Callum remarked from his spot by the window.

From somewhere in his mind’s periphery he caught the vestiges of a very Rhodesian sigh—Varona, honestly, like the proverbial chord that David played to annoy the Lord.

She had the air of someone who had seen a lot and decided to simply close her eyes and stop looking.

This time, she would close her eyes. She would inhale deeply. She would do what she had done before but this time she would not let herself fail, because she was no longer frightened. She was no longer aching. She was no longer desperate for the crutch of someone else’s faith.

They had shared something that couldn't be undone-something that had followed them around, joining them even in their absences form each other. History did that to people. Proximity. Love in some cases, hatred in others. The specific kind of intimacy that meant that every enemy was once a friend.

one thing Parisa had come to learn was that other people’s view of her said far more about them than it ever did about her.

To care at all about anyone or anything means inevitably to suffer.

Everything was related. This was what nobody seemed to understand. That although some corn-fed family in Iowa might not feel the loss of the Philippines now, they would someday, they would have to, because ecosystems were connected, because life mattered, because nothing in this world could disappear without a trace

If power is a thing to be had, it must be capable of possession. But power is not any discrete size or weight. Power is continuous. Power is parabolic. Say you are given some power, which then increases your capacity to accumulate more power. Your capacity for power increases exponentially in relation to the actual power you have gained. Thus, to gain power is to be increasingly powerless. If the more power one has, the less one has, then is it the thing or are you?

As with any chronic condition, his survival was a matter of becoming more comfortable, not some elusive unreality of being wholly pain-free. The trick was managing it until it no longer bit so angrily or stung.

The actionable items were intangible (no, Belen said repeatedly, actually it was very simple, all you had to do was hold corporations responsible for their emissions, but for whatever reason her voice seemed to get drowned out by something, usually heartwarming ads where oil was being cleaned off of ducks with Very Effective dish soap). And also, they noted with importance, where were they supposed to get the money? Belen said wealth tax, and the wealthy said hm sorry what?

What did he think love was—pain? Was that all anyone believed love to be? That if it didn’t hurt, if no one pined, then it was as if it did not exist and had never existed—a tree brought down in the forest with no one to hear it fall?

He says my number one quality is my attention span and I should never let anyone tell me otherwise.

Murder first and then scholarly pursuits

The process if maintaining her existence had become so exhausting that the only option was to succumb to eternal nothingness, drifting to the bottom of some unexplorable deep

Sometimes it seemed he belonged more to the realm of dreams than to the world of the living.

Dream magic! It made no sense and it did not need to. There was no science here, only vibes.

I believed the universe was completely random, and that's what eluded us. Because we all want to believe we are fundamental in some way. We are our own myths, our own legends. We give things reason. We are reasonable creatures and so everything must have its place, its purpose — but we are also egoistical creatures, and so we give ourselves reasons that don't exist.

Yes, here, this was his domain now, because they were in a dream and Gideon was a dreamer. He was an optimist, an idiot prince. He saw the possibility of doom and said not today, fucker!, flipping off the whims of fate while diving backward into hell.

I hate boring little anxieties, like Rhodes’s. People who never exceed their shape because they’re too busy wondering why people don’t like them, or who they’re meant to be, or why they aren’t loved, or—

What does this have to do with sex?” Reina muttered, gaze fixed straight ahead. “It’s not about sex,” said projection-Parisa. “You know that. It’s never about sex.” “Then what’s it about?” Projection-Parisa’s lips twisted upward. “Power.

For the last time, I do not think I am holy. I am not divine.

I'm obviously delirious from my full time job as an academic

there is doom to be found everywhere if doom is what you seek.

Everyone has magic and dreams. The limitation‘s were not to law of physics, but rather in the control of the dreamer.

So perhaps forgiveness was better not asked.

Ladies, let’s get in formation.

Something-something not all men," muttered Callum, who couldn't be bothered to defend his Y chromosome at the moment.

Was it seduction or torment?

To feel the feelings of someone else is to exhaust yourself with double the pain.

Reina’s mother did not talk much. She had the air of someone who had seen a lot and decided to simply close her eyes and stop looking.)

What an omnipotent little idiot.

Well, I'm sure it was all exactly as playful as you imagine and not at all some kind of ongoing experiment to indoctrinate you into their cult of homicidal academia.

No iba a dudar del poder de su cuerpo. No iba a cuestionarse si era merecido. Iba a hacer esto y lo iba a hacer ella sola.

People had a maddening tendency to be precisely what they were in the most unpredictable, erratic way possible.

There was something awful about feeling rage and wanting to strangle something but instead falling prey to the softness of hormones, welling up with the inadequacy of sadness when what she meant to do was scream.

Reina hadn't known her mother very well, but she was pretty sure that this speech was a very sad way for her story to end -- that all could be said of her unremarkable life was that she was proficient at two jobs. Nothing about whether she sang off-key in the shower or was fearful of garden snakes, or anything to give her any real shape at all.

Do you think they know what it really means to love?” his projection-self mused aloud to him. “That it isn’t the simple joy of fondness, I mean. In fact it’s violent, destructive. It means to cut the heart out of your chest and give it to someone else.

He had told Tristan once that they all had the exact curses they deserved. He understood his own, that he felt everything because he wanted terribly, with all of his being, to feel nothing. Because to feel nothing would be to finally no longer feel pain.

When we compare, we want to be the best or have the best of our group. The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of “Fit in and stand out!” It’s not be yourself and respect others for being authentic, it’s “Fit in, but win.” I want to swim the same workout as you, and beat you at it.

Muder first and then scholarly pursuits

Knowledge is carnage, you can't have it without sacrafice

Nor the fury of a man who'd just fled from Scotland, where he had seen the woman he loved for the first time in a year, and realized he would do anything for her

(Ugh, men.)

if you do not know precisely where impossibility begins and ends, then of course it cannot constrain you.

If Gideon had a philosophy, it was this: No sense despairing.

It became easier over time to deny others the right to know her, to look too long at her. She developed a talent for isolation.

She was built on a foundation of avoidance for the sake of self-preservation.

If Gideon had a philosophy, it was this: No sense despairing. There is doom to be found everywhere if doom is what you seek.

Probably Callum thought he was feeling something very male and powerful, like anger and betrayal. In reality he was childlike and lonely, and alone.

She never spent too long being herself where anyone could see.

Is that what you think my magic is? That I'm some kind of metal detector for your individual feelings?" He was, actually. Not that he'd ever admit it

Yo habría prendido en llamas a cualquier a con la más ligera intención de lastimarte… algo que nunca soñé que me atrevería a hacer. Hasta que llegaste tú

Si no usaba esta vida, entonces la estaba desperdiciando

You know, being routinely accused of psychopathy is starting to get on my nerves,” Parisa said dryly.

Te considera vulnerable. Y luego con sorna: Te considera débil.

We can’t help clinging to our origins, Callum said. The past always seems more ordered, Rhodes. It always seems clearer, more straightforward, easier to understand. We have a craving for it, that sense of simplicity, but only an idiot would ever chase the past, because our perception of it is false- it was never that the world was simple. Just that in retrospect it could be known, and therefore understood.

She was, in that moment, better than invisible, which was a particularity bitter dose of triumph. Some validation for the worst part of herself. Her tangible transparency was proof that things were just as she’d always thought.

No—not the memory of his father but the fallout, the waves of loneliness, the sense of inadequacy, the pervasive, enduring gloom. The tiptoeing, the perilous sense that at any moment he might step wrong, might cause something to break, might awaken the beast inside his father’s chest. Might summon to life the titan who ruled over his happiness, who dwarfed his own diminished sense of self. He felt the acrid sense of fear, the thought that was not really a thought, but just the heightened sense of run. That fight-or-flight, bitter and rancid. The rage in his heart, thud-thudding with his pulse. The fear that his anger was inherited. That his own soul, like his father’s, was flawed.

What was it they said about people who had lived through extraordinary loss missing the ordinary? The little things, the trifling reassurances that made up their primary language. The culture of their own tiny nation, which had recently withstood some bombs.

That was both the charm and the rub of him: confidence that was also arrogance. To hold that against him would be to fundamentally misunderstand who he was. To care about his arrogance would only be an exercise in emotional fragility, and thus a waste of both their time.

But why should she have ever had to prove her usefulness to anyone? She had not asked for the circumstances of her birth. She had not asked for her powers, either. If her so-called family could not offer her the dignity of acceptance, much less love, they did not deserve the fruits of her worth.

Libby had known that about Ezra, the way he tended to want to save her from her anxieties instead of simply listening when she spoke. He wanted her to want to be rescued, and she had thought the occasional decision to indulge him was just something people did in relationships. Male ego or whatever. Things good girlfriends did in order to keep the peace.

This was just the world. You trusted people, you loved them, you offered them the dignity of your time and the intimacy of your thoughts and the frailty of your hope and they either accepted it and cared for it or they rejected it and destroyed it and in the end, none of it was up to you. This was just what you got. Heartbreak was inevitable. Disappointment assured.

…but there was always a moment when people started to look at him differently. Gideon hated that moment. The moment when others started to find something—many somethings—to reinforce their suspicions that Gideon was repulsive in some way. Instinctual knowledge; prey responding to a threat. Fight or flight. I can’t tell anyone, Gideon had thought, but especially not you.

For what it was worth, Reina did not need Nico to see her in any particular way. They were friends—or perhaps colleagues, nothing more. She had never thought of him romantically and certainly not sexually. She never thought of anyone sexually. That she possessed any sexual organs at all was as little interest to her as it would have been to any other nongerminating plant.

paradox is the appearance of contradiction between two related components. Although light and darkness seem to be opposites, you can’t have one without the other—the opposing elements of a paradox are inextricably linked. Even though the elements seem contradictory, they actually complement and inform each other in ways that allow us to discover underlying truths about ourselves and the world.

If power is a thing to be had, it must be capable of possession. Power is continuous. Say you are given some power, which then increases your capacity to accumulate more power. Your capacity for power increases exponentially in relation to the actual power you have gained. Thus, to gain power is to be increasingly powerless. If the more power one has, the less one has, then is it the thing or are you?

Parisa sighed internally, giving up. She turned instead to Dalton, who was already watching her. I can see you plotting from here, he thought, telegraphing it in her direction. It was rare that he addressed her directly when others were present. She could not, in fact, think of a time he’d ever done so before, especially given Atlas’s presence in the room. Though, come to think of it, that might have been precisely why he’d done it. I never plot, Parisa casually assured him, aware that Atlas could very well be listening in. Nor do I scheme. Though I do on occasion conspire.

Because of this place I’m a murderer,” he said. “Complicity,” he amended after a moment’s consideration. “Soon to be.” The last was a conclusive mutter. “Get to the funny part,” Libby suggested dryly. “Well, there’s a stain on me now, isn’t there? A mark. Would kill for…followed by a blank space.” Nico summoned the knife back to his palm, only of course it didn’t register that way. One moment the knife was cast aside, the next it was in his hand. “I wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t come here. And I wouldn’t have come here at all if it weren’t for you.” She wondered if he blamed her. He didn’t sound accusatory, but it was hard not to assume that he was. “You were going to do it regardless, remember?” “Yeah but only because they asked you.” He glanced down at the knife in his hand, turning it over to inspect the blade. “Inseverable,” he said, neither to himself nor her. “What?” “Inseverable,” he repeated, louder this time. He glanced at her, shrugging. “One of those if-then calculations, right? We met, so now we can’t detach. We’re just going to always play a weird game of…what’s the word? The thing, espejo, the game. The mirror game.” “Mirror game?” “Yeah, you do one thing, I do it too. Mirror.” Libby asked, “But who does it first?” “Doesn’t matter.” “Do you resent it?” He looked down at the knife, and then back up at her. “Apparently, I’d kill to protect it,” he said, “so yeah.” “We could stop,” she suggested. “Stop playing the game.” “Stop where? Stop here? No,” Nico said with a shake of his head, fingers tapping at his side. “This isn’t far enough.” “But what if it’s too far?” “It is,” he agreed. “Too far to stop.” “Paradox,” Libby observed aloud, and Nico’s mouth twisted with wry acknowledgement. “Isn’t it? The day you are not a fire,” he said, “is the day the earth will fall still for me.

You’ve come this far,” Dalton continued, stepping into the center of the empty circle, “and you are no longer being tested. There is no passing or failing. However, we do feel an ethical obligation to warn you that while you are safe from bodily harm, that does not include your comfort during this ceremony. You will not die,” he concluded. “But, all other outcomes are plausible.” Beside Reina, Nico apprehensively shifted against the shelves. Tristan folded his arms more tightly across his chest, and Parisa slid a glance to Atlas, who hovered near the door. His expression had not changed. Or perhaps it had. It was possible Reina was imagining it, but the Caretaker’s customary look of bland attentiveness seemed a touch more marble than usual. Fixed, in a way that suggested curation. “All other outcomes are plausible?” Callum asked, voicing the room’s collective doubt into the empty space. “As in, we won’t die, but we could conceivably wake up a giant cockroach?” (“Beetle,” murmured Reina, which Callum ignored.) “It’s not a known outcome,” Dalton said, “but neither is it technically impossible.

He wanted her to want to be rescued, and she had thought the occasional decision to indulge him was just something people did in relationships. Male ego or whatever. Things good girlfriends did in order to keep the peace.

Today, just as in Jesus’s day, greatness means power, position. It means people serving me, and Jesus says a resounding, “No!” As an old Puritan prayer says so eloquently, we need to learn to pray: Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown.9

The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of “Fit in and stand out!” It’s not be yourself and respect others for being authentic, it’s “Fit in, but win.

Dagny, we who’ve been called ‘materialists’ by the killers of the human spirit, we’re the only ones who know how little value or meaning there is in material objects as such, because we’re the ones who create their value and meaning. We can afford to give them up, for a short while, in order to redeem something much more precious. We are the soul, of which railroads, copper mines, steel mills and oil wells are the body—and they are living entities that beat day and night, like our hearts, in the sacred function of supporting human life, but only so long as they remain our body, only so long as they remain the expression, the reward and the property of achievement. Without us, they are corpses and their sole product is poison, not wealth or food, the poison of disintegration that turns men into hordes of scavengers. Dagny, learn to understand the nature of your own power and you’ll understand the paradox you now see around you. You do not have to depend on any material possessions, they depend on you, you create them, you own the one and only tool of production. Wherever you are, you will always be able to produce. But the looters—by their own stated theory—are in desperate, permanent, congenital need and at the blind mercy of matter. Why don’t you take them at their word? They need railroads, factories, mines, motors, which they cannot make or run. Of what use will your railroad be to them without you? Who held it together? Who kept it alive? Who saved it, time and time again? Was it your brother James? Who fed him? Who fed the looters? Who produced their weapons? Who gave them the means to enslave you? The impossible spectacle of shabby little incompetents holding control over the products of genius—who made it possible? Who supported your enemies, who forged your chains, who destroyed your achievement?