Oleanna Quotes

We can only interpret the behavior of others through the screen we create.

Well, there are those who would say it’s a form of aggression." "What is?" "A surprise.

JOHN: You said “Good day.” I think that it is a nice day today. CAROL: Is it? JOHN: Yes, I think it is. CAROL: And why is that important? JOHN: Because it is the essence of all human communication. I say something conventional, you respond, and the information we exchange is not about the “weather,” but that we both agree to converse. In effect, we agree that we are both human.

If I fail all the time, it must be that I think of myself as a failure. If I do not want to think of myself as a failure, perhaps I should begin by succeeding now and again. Look. The tests, you see, which you encounter, in school, in college, in life, were designed, in the most part, for idiots. By idiots. There is no need to fail at them. They are not a test of your worth. They are a test of your ability to retain and spout back misinformation. Of course you fail them. They’re nonsense. And I …

What gives you the right. Yes. To speak to a woman in your private … Yes. Yes. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You feel yourself empowered … you say so yourself. To strut. To posture. To “perform.” To “Call me in here …” Eh? You say that higher education is a joke. And treat it as such, you treat it as such. And confess to a taste to play the Patriarch in your class. To grant this. To deny that. To embrace your students.

Somebody told you, and you hold it as an article of faith, that higher education is an unassailable good. This notion is so dear to you that when I question it you become angry. Good. Good, I say. Are not those the very things which we should question? I say college education, since the war, has become so a matter of course, and such a fashionable necessity, for those either of or aspiring to to the new vast middle class, that we espouse it, as a matter of right, and have ceased to ask, “What is it good for?” (Pause)

JOHN: I’ll tell you a story about myself. Do you mind? I was raised to think myself stupid. That’s what I want to tell you. CAROL: What do you mean? JOHN: Just what I said. I was brought up, and my earliest, and most persistent memories are of being told that I was stupid. “You have such intelligence. Why must you behave so stupidly?” Or, “Can’t you understand? Can’t you understand?” And I could not understand. I could not understand. CAROL: What? JOHN: The simplest problem. Was beyond me. It was a mystery. CAROL: What was a mystery? JOHN: How people learn. How I could learn. Which is what I’ve been speaking of in class. And of course, you can’t hear it. Carol. Of course, you can’t. (Pause) I used to speak of “real people,” and wonder what the real people did. The real people. Who were they? They were the people other than myself. The good people. The capable people. The people who could do the things, I could not do: learn, study, retain ... all that garbage – which is what I have been talking of in class, and that’s exactly what I have been talking of – If you are told ... Listen to this. If the young child is told, he cannot understand. Then he takes it as a description of himself. What am I? I am that which cannot understand. And I saw you out there, when we were speaking of the concepts of... CAROL: I can’t understand any of them. JOHN: Well, then, that’s my fault. That’s not your fault. And that is not verbiage. That’s what I firmly hold to be the truth. And I am sorry, and I owe you an apology.

Nesta asked, “What is the Wild Hunt?” She’d also told him of their encounter with Lanthys, and the presence of the Autumn Court soldiers. Cassian had convinced Rhys not to engage with them, at least until they could deal with Briallyn. When Rhys had raised his shield around the Prison once more, they’d already vanished. Rhys blew out a breath, leaning back in his chair. “Honestly, I thought it mere myth. That Lanthys remembers such a thing … Well, there’s always room for lying, I suppose, but on the off chance he was telling the truth, that’d make him more than fifteen thousand years old.” Feyre asked, “So what is it, then?” Rhys lifted a hand, and a book of legends from a shelf behind him floated to his fingers. He laid it upon the desk. He flipped it open to a page, revealing an image of a group of tall, strange-looking beings with crowns atop their heads. “The Fae were not the first masters of this world. According to our oldest legends, most now forgotten, we were created by beings who were near-gods—and monsters. The Daglan. They ruled for millennia, and enslaved us and the humans. They were petty and cruel and drank the magic of the land like wine.” Rhys’s eyes flicked to Ataraxia, then to Cassian. “Some strains of the mythology claim that one of the Fae heroes who rose up to overthrow them was Fionn, who was given the great sword Gwydion by the High Priestess Oleanna, who had dipped it into the Cauldron itself. Fionn and Gwydion overthrew the Daglan. A millennium of peace followed, and the lands were divided into rough territories that were the precursors to the courts—but at the end of those thousand years, they were at each other’s throats, on the brink of war.” His face tightened. “Fionn unified them and set himself above them as High King. The first and only High King this land has ever had.

Well, you see? That’s what I’m saying. We can only interpret the behavior of others through the screen we … (The phone rings.) Through … (To phone:) Hello …? (To CAROL:) Through the screen we create.

Somebody told you, and you hold it as an article of faith, that higher education is an unassailable good.

perhaps, they stopped. But I heard them continue.

I asked you here to in the spirit of investigation, to ask you... to ask... (Pause) What have I done to you?

That I desired it, that I was not pure of longing...

You see. I don't think that I need your help. I don't think I need anything you have.