C.a Quotes

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. TACITUS, c. A.D. 55-120

You must live every day as if it counts, which means to love all of it. Never let a single one go by without noting the color of the sky, the song of the bird, the face of the one you love best. And don't let yourself get talked out of the things you really care about, don't put off what you want to be.

The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.

What could she have done? She was a heroine, and with that came certain obligations.

No one's the monster in their own story. Monsters are just a matter of perspective.

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

Solitude is its own kind of madness. Like hope itself.

Dogs were with us from the very beginning. And of all the animals that walked the long centuries beside us, they always walked the closest. And then they paid the price. Fuck us.

When I lamented the sale of the gold bars, GERI said it wasn’t a problem because there was a more than enough of the metal below the floor of the barn where I was sitting.

Never trust someone who tells good stories, not until you know why they're doing it.

Roughly translated into English I am Galactic Exploration and Research Intelligence number twenty-seven.” “The first letter of those words comes out G.E.R.I., so I’ll call you GERI if that’s okay.

I couldn’t make sense out of what I was seeing. There was a shiny metal arm about an inch thick with a joint in the middle and a knob on the end. The arm was knocking the knob against the window. The oddest thing was that the arm wasn’t connected to anything. It appeared to be floating by itself in midair!

I didn’t know what question to ask first. GERI’s announcement surprised me. My friend from outer space had become a property developer.

Mr. Williams, in your short time boarding with us you’ve seen very little of my home,” Eleanor said. “I’d like you to see the rest of it, starting with my bedroom.

Life's a riddle, child," he said lightly, "but if you can feel the bumps on the road, it means you're alive and in the game. And that is a good place to be.

Ends happen fast, and often arrive before you've been warned they're coming.

He wasn’t being arrogant. It wasn’t self-confidence that a human would have because they had been successful in the past. GERI was simply certain he would be successful because he was what he was—a superlative intellect, perhaps the only one of his caliber.

You have just placed yourself in an untenable position, Mr. Mathews. You have made a threat that you cannot carry out. I’m not intimidated by your gun, so I won’t be going anywhere with you. I think you should re-read the book on successful information gathering techniques.

It took me all day to get that car out. Well, it wasn’t a car. That’s just what I thought it might be when I spotted part of it jutting out from decades of forest undergrowth, and moss, inside a mound of blackberry bushes.

Eleanor, I bought the Simpson place because I’ve always wanted the forest on that land. I got more than I bargained for. Tuesday, I went out there to take a walk in the forest and I found something. That something has become as you say my ‘friend.

In science fiction books characters always seem to have a weapon that can be set on stun. Do you have anything like that?” I asked. GERI laughed. He was getting better at it. “Yes, Tom, I have something like that.

Books are like people. They can be beautiful on the outside and it’s wonderful when they are, but what counts is the inside. And the inside of a book can be communicated in a dozen different ways, and cheaply enough that everyone can have access. And everyone should.

That got to me. I wasn’t communicating with a computer. Inside this machine was a sophisticated, self-aware intelligence, and it wanted me to be its friend.

Even the wide sea and the open sky can be claustrophobic if you never get away from them.

With so many marvels around you, did you stop seeing some of them?

Forgetting is a kind of betrayal, even if it’s what happens to all grief. Time wears everything smoother as it grinds past, I suppose.

Our choices shape our lives, and until we die we can make new ones.

I turned completely around to make sure of what I was seeing. I needn’t have worried about getting the vehicle out of the hole. It had done that by itself.

But the thing about maybes is that you can get lost in them and end up going nowhere.

... even a question can be a lie if asked in the right way.

Dogs were with us from the very beginning. And of all the animals that walked the long centuries beside us, they always walked the closest.

What? Are there two of them?” she asked. “Are we being invaded?” I laughed, but it was an understandable question given what she had just learned. “No, there is only one GERI. It’s something else. On Wednesday, when I let GERI out of the barn, I started the process of cleaning out the house. I found a ton of money under the floor in old Simpson’s closet.

Maybe I could help with some of the wedding stuff, too.” Sidney laughed, then saw Vaughn frown. “ Wait — you’re being serious?” He shrugged. “Sure, why not?” “No offense, but you don’t exactly exude a ‘wedding planning’ vibe.” “And thank God for that. But I think I can manage a few tasks. How hard could it be to pick a photographer? Or a band? Just ask them if they plan to play ‘Y.M.C.A.’ or that annoying Kool and the Gang song. If they say no, they’re hired.

I always thought fondly of Eleanor and was a little shy around her when I checked into the Boarding House. Her smile still warmed me, but now as a woman her smile also made me a little wobbly in the knees.

Sometimes the things you fantasize about aren't what you end up really wanting,

Tu crezi c-a fost iubire-adevărată? Eu cred c-a fost o scurtă nebunie

You can fall out of your own safe life that quickly, and nothing you thought you knew will ever be the same again.

I realise how much time I used to spend with my head in a book, filling the emptiness of my world and letting the pages distract from the darkness in the shadows behind me.

If my books can make one person smile, I am, in my opinion, a successful author." C.A. King

I had come to learn pretty quickly that life has its highs and lows just like the ocean does and sometimes you just have to see how far they'll carry you.

It is the artist who tries to gradually accustom people to the possibilities of a better state of things.

Anything worth fighting for requires us to be willing to suffer to protect it.

When people die,' she said softly, 'It doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to give them up.

Nothing’s perfect. Especially not me. I’m just like you were. Human. Hanging on. Holding out for a happy ending. But knowing it ends badly. And then being surprised by joy.

It came to me that I hadn't known I had been being less than I could have been until then, when I saw there was so much more of the world for me to be myself within.

If we’re not loyal to the things we love, what’s the point? That’s like not having a memory. That’s when we stop being human.

We're out here on the wrong side of a dying world trying to piece together the story of what's happened from torn fragments that we can only snatch at as they flutter past us in the wind.

Such a narrative as this demands some sort of physical consolation for its spiritual tribulation. Our heroine received it in one last cup of tea. The reader may be advised to do so likewise.

They are crystals, Mr. Williams,” Ferg said, “but unlike any other crystals on this planet. If I were to put a label on the spheres, each is a Dynamically Layered Organic Crystal Lattice. Something like this has been theorized, but it has remained in the theory stage because no one could imagine how to make them.

The good die young, but I have been spared to build myself up so that I may end my life as good as gold. The senior dead will be proud of me.... I will join the Y.M.C.A. of the immortals. Only, in this very hour, I may be missing eternity.

Why are you not having me take you there?” GERI asked. “I could have had you there in twenty minutes.” “I appreciate the offer, GERI. I don’t know what I’m getting into. I don’t want to have to explain to someone how I got to South Carolina so fast. I need to have this trip well documented.

They didn't think it had anything to do with the war. They were sure Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had then taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

It is not wise to mistake great effort for productive effort,

If you leave, you might as well take my heart with you. I won't need it anymore, because it won't bother to beat without you.

Their is no more insidious poison than hubris.

Does absence have a weight?

The cost of forgetting history is reliving it.

No one pays attention to the janitor.

I didn't know what to do next. Doing something is always the best way to think

The best things. Adventures. Destinations. Knowledge. Relationships. All of them start with uncomfortable moments. It's only when you're grappling with something new that you might uncover something wonderful... but unfortunately, that means grappling with something new.

We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat , and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that's only spelling" It's much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star. (Logan Pearsall Smith) Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around. (J.R. Moehringer) You could be standing a few feet away...I could have sat next to you on the subway, or brushed beside you as we went through the turnstiles. But whether or not you are here, you are here- because these words are for you, and they wouldn't exist is you weren't here in some way. At last I had it--the Christmas present I'd wanted all along, but hadn't realized. His words. The dream was obviously a sign: he was too enticing to resist. Wow. You must have a lot of faith in me. Which I appreciate. Even if I'm not sure I share it. I could do this on my own, and not freak out that I had no idea what waited for me on the other side of this night. Hope and belief. I'd always wanted hope, but never believed that I could have such an adventure on my own. That I could own it. And love it. But it happened. Because I'm So uncool and so afraid. If there was a clue, that meant the mystery was still intact I fear you may have outmatched me, because not I find these words have nowhere to go. It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show that you tried unless you end up succeeding. This was not a haystack. We were people, and people had ways of finding eachother. It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that is humbles the present. Don't worry. It's your embarrassment at not having the thought that counts. You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's ahint- ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy- all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know--this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately. Be careful what you;re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head You should never wish for wishful thinking

Gods are just stories now. Bar said that’s all they really were anyway: stories to make sense of lives of those who wanted someone else to take charge of them, rather than cut their own way.

brain can hold anything, from giant things, like distant stars and planets, to tiny things we can’t see, like germs. A brain can even hold things that aren’t and never were, like hobbits. A brain can hold the whole universe, a fist just holds what little it can grab. Or hits what it can’t.

Tom, does this activity that we are undertaking qualify for the moniker cloak-and-dagger?” GERI asked. “I think it does, but I don’t share your enthusiasm for it. I’m the agent on the ground and potentially the one in the line-of-fire.” “Do not worry, Tom. I have got your six,” GERI said, and laughed.

In the end, I realised it was about mourning someone and being betrayed by a second of happiness that makes you forget your loss for a moment, and then feeling worse because that unthinking instant of happiness ends up feeling like a betrayal of the lost one.

It is natural to want to employ your friends when you find yourself in times of need. The world is a harsh place, and your friends soften the harshness. Besides, you know them. Why depend on a stranger when you have a friend at hand? Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. TACITUS, c. A.D. 55-120 The problem is that you often do not know your friends as well as you imagine. Friends often agree on things in order to avoid an argument. They cover up their unpleasant qualities so as to not offend each other. They laugh extra hard at each other’s jokes. Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes—maybe they mean it, often they do not. When you decide to hire a friend, you gradually discover the qualities he or she has kept hidden. Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favor can become oppressive: It means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive. Ingratitude has a long and deep history. It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries, that it is truly amazing that people continue to underestimate them. Better to be wary. If you never expect gratitude from a friend, you will be pleasantly surprised when they do prove grateful. The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power. The friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings.

You are so beautiful Sam. I feel like I can’t get enough of those sweet lips,” Wes sucked on my lower lip very lightly. My body was trembling with need. He traced the tip of his nose across my cheek. I felt his tongue run along the side of my neck before he whispered, “You have no idea how much you are turning me on tonight. You are so f$$king sexy.

Trust is the ultimate strength.

How fitting an end to us. You can't love me, and I can't look at you every day and pretend to not love you,

I found a few books I knew which was like meeting old friends in a strange place,

Even as individuals become families and families become communities, and communities become nations, so eventually must the nations draw together in peace.

Time is always precious,” Hirianthial said softly. “Only if you fill it with something,” Sascha said. “Otherwise it’s marking the hours.

the only answers that are useful are the ones that will help us survive into the future.

Hay amores que nos esperan toda la vida a que maduremos, para que los aprehendamos con fuerza y no los dejemos escapar.

Of all the animals that travelled the long road through the ages with us, dogs always walked closest.

Forewarned is not forearmed. Sometimes you spend so much effort looking for the track that you know is there, that you miss the other one that you didn’t know about.

If you truly hate censorship then you will defend anyone that is unfairly censored. Everyone deserves their legal rights, even when they disagree with us. Protecting their rights protects ours.

Everything else pales next to the fact that he's going to outlive us all. It's probably safer for him not to have intimate friends." "I don't care how old you get," Sehvi said. "It's never safer to have no friends.

I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand hopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don’t think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It’s like when you’re starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the “cat” is connected to an actual cat, and that “dog” is connected to an actual dog. It’s that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we’re still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that’s only spelling.

Remembering dreams is like picking up small jellyfish—they slip through your fingers—and you never know if it’s a dream you had or if you added to the dream in the remembering. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re remembering a dream at all, or just a dream about remembering a dream. And if that doesn’t make sense, well, neither do dreams.

That to make something, one must feel something," Jahir said. "That there is no creation without a motive force. And that such forces should be positive, or the results become twisted and strange. Which would suggest that love creates the universe, or should.

At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way - and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.

To love was to be vulnerable to pain. To laugh was to be sensitive enough for tears. To be open to joy was to be despair’s fair prey.

He wondered if all camaraderie was actually dimly sensed psychic connection.

I lived on anger, but it’s the kind of fuel that uses you up even when it’s pushing you forward.

You cannot be mother, therapist and healer-assist to six children and expect perfection," Jahir said. "Of course I can," she answered. She snorted. "I'm a nurse. It's what we do.

How can someone so loved look so constantly for reasons to be unworthy of it?

that’s the only place you find fairy tales, Hirianthial. In books. In the real world, there’s always someone who has to clean the kitchen and take out the trash. There’s always politics. There’s always someone who wants to get ahead and doesn’t care who they squash on their way up.

Be like the ancient elements in thinking. Like Earth, build upon a foundation of facts. Like Air, be willing to change your ideas if the winds of evidence require it. Like Fire, be unquenched in a desire for learning more. Like Water, both our ideas and the tides can be unstoppable.

You can love friends enough to cross the worlds for them." Kuriel considered him a few moments longer, then dropped her gaze and petted his foreleg once. "Maybe there is magic in the world.

In short, the fossil record is perfectly compatible with the supposition that at some time between eight and six million years ago, at the north end of the Rift Valley where the most ancient hominid remains have been found, one section of the l. c. a. population found itself living in a watery environment and—whether by choice or under duress—began to adapt to a semi-aquatic existence.

I spoke a word in anger To one who was my friend, Like a knife it cut him deeply, A wound that was hard to mend. That word, so thoughtlessly uttered, I would we could both forget, But its echo lives and memory gives The recollection yet. How many hearts are broken, How many friends are lost By some unkind word spoken Before we count the cost! But a word or deed of kindness Will repay a hundredfold. For it echoes again in the hearts of men And carries a joy untold.

Another strike of lightening – now accompanied by the deep-bellied rumble, and the horse reared, incidentally setting Henry very picturesquely against the inconstant moon. Alas, Catherine was deeply engaged in her argument with Old Edric and this missed entirely the melodramatic display. But we may assume that, possessing so strong an imagination, Catherine had often pictured Henry thus...

I still feel glad to emphasize the duty, the defining characteristic of the pure scientist—probably to be found working in universities—who commit themselves absolutely to specialized goals, to seek the purest manifestation of any possible phenomenon that they are investigating, to create laboratories that are far more controlled than you would ever find in industry, and to ignore any constraints imposed by, as it were, realism. Further down the scale, people who understand and want to exploit results of basic science have to do a great deal more work to adapt and select the results, and combine the results from different sources, to produce something that is applicable, useful, and profitable on an acceptable time scale.

He had been living in a down-town Y.M.C.A., but when he quit the task of making sow-ear purses out of sows' ears, he moved up-town and went to work immediately as a reporter for The Sun. He kept at this for a year, doing desultory writing on the side, with little success, and then one day an infelicitous incident peremptorily closed his newspaper career. On a February afternoon he was assigned to report a parade of Squadron A. Snow threatening, he went to sleep instead before a hot fire, and when he woke up did a smooth column about the muffled beats of the horses' hoofs in the snow… This he handed in. Next morning a marked copy of the paper was sent down to the City Editor with a scrawled note: "Fire the man who wrote this." It seemed that Squadron A had also seen the snow threatening—had postponed the parade until another day. A week later he had begun "The Demon Lover."… In

Eastern spirits are made from rice and their hangovers are apologetic while stabbing you in the kidneys,” Eagles replied affably. “What you want, western man, are southern spirits. These will do you the courtesy of smashing you in the face as you drink them, rather than tricking you into thinking them mild and harmless.

You actually believe that you have no effect on me huh? You think that I don’t actually feel the need you do. I find it hard to think about you without feeling insanely hungry. I have thought about your body every f$$king day since I got my first taste. I control my hunger for you but it is there Sam. Every damn second it is there. I told you that you are under my skin and I meant it. I crave you so badly. Your soft skin, feeling your body and the taste of you, Sam you are so addicting. I want you so badly and today not being able to make love to you drove me out of my mind. I want to bury myself deep inside of you and forget about everything else.

The number 6 was the first perfect number, and the number of creation. The adjective "perfect" was attached that are precisely equal to the sum of all the smaller numbers that divide into them, as 6=1+2+3. The next such number, incidentally, is 28=1+2+4+7+14, followed by 496=1+2+4+8+16+31+62+124+248; by the time we reach the ninth perfect number, it contains thirty-seven digits. Six is also the product of the first female number, 2, and the first masculine number, 3. The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (ca. 20 B.C.-c.a. A.D. 40), whose work brought together Greek philosophy and Hebrew scriptures, suggested that God created the world in six days because six was a perfect number. The same idea was elaborated upon by St. Augustine (354-430) in The City of God: "Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true: God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist." Some commentators of the Bible regarded 28 also as a basic number of the Supreme Architect, pointing to the 28 days of the lunar cycle. The fascination with perfect numbers penetrated even into Judaism, and their study was advocated in the twelfth century by Rabbi Yosef ben Yehudah Ankin in his book, Healing of the Souls.

We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most . Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. It's not going to be explained to you in a prayer. And I'm not going to be able to explain it to you. Not because I'm as ignorant and hopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat, and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. but that's only spelling. I don't mean this to sound hopeless. Because in the same way that a kid can realise what "c-a-t" means, I think we can find the truths that live behind our words. I wish that I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learnt the words. It must have been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily.

We had been out for one of our evening rambles, Holmes and I, and had returned about six o’clock on a cold, frosty winter’s evening. As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor. I picked it up and read: CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON, Appledore Towers, Hampstead. Agent. “Who is he?” I asked. “The worst man in London,” Holmes answered, as he sat down and stretched his legs before the fire. “Is anything on the back of the card?” I turned it over. “Will call at 6:30--C.A.M.,” I read. “Hum! He’s about due. Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow. And yet I can’t get out of doing business with him--indeed, he is here at my invitation.” “But who is he?” “I’ll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?” I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.