User Profile

Was it more honourable to starve than to steal? Many people would say yes, though rarely those who’d actually experienced an empty belly, or a child whimpering with its own hunger. Was it more honourable to starve than to steal when others had the means to feed you but chose not to, unless you paid with money you did not have? He thought not. By choosing to starve you became your own oppressor, keeping yourself in line, harming yourself for having the temerity to be poor, when by rights that ought to be a constable’s job. Show any initiative or imagination and you were called lazy, shifty, crafty, incorrigible. So he’d dismissed talk of honour; it was just a way of making the rich and powerful feel better about themselves and the powerless and poverty-stricken feel worse.

— Matter by Iain M. Banks

He looked up. Standing in the air, at eye-level, was a robed figure about six inches high. A bony nose, with bent grey whiskers, protruded from the hood. Tiny skeletal fingers gripped a very small scythe. Mr Pounder nodded thoughtfully to himself. You didn't rise to membership of the Inner Circle of the Guild of Rat catchers without hearing a few whispered rumours. Rats had their own Death, they said, as well as their own kings, parliaments and nations. No human had ever seen it, though. Up until now. He felt honoured. He'd won the Golden Mallet for most rats caught every year for the past five years, but he respected them, as a soldier might respect a cunning and valiant enemy. 'Er. . . I'm dead, aren't I. . . ?' SQUEAK. Mr Pounder felt that many eyes were watching him. Many small, shining eyes. 'And. . . what happens now?' SQUEAK. The soul of Mr Pounder looked at his hands. They seemed to be elongating, and getting hairier. He could feel his ears growing, and a certain rather embarrassing elongation happening at the base of his spine. He'd spent most of his life in a single-minded activity in dark places, yet even so. . .

'But I don't believe in reincarnation!' he protested. SQUEAK. And this, Mr Pounder understood with absolute rodent clarity, meant: reincarnation believes in you.

— Maskerade by Terry Pratchett, Peter Serafinowicz, Indira Varma (Narrator), and 1 other

Ingen ville bli gamle og ta farvel med verden, heller ikke Hanne. Hun fant seg ikke i sånt, det kom bare ikke til å skje. De siste skulle bli de første. Hun skulle komme de idiotisk selvopptatte venninnene i forkjøpet og bli professor, og mer enn det, hun skulle vise verden, hun skulle vise hvor inn i helvete mye alle gikk glipp av når de gikk glipp av henne. Hun skulle lage sitt eget tankesystem. Sånn var det. Hun var ridd av hybris, og det var kanskje like greit, for da fikk hun noe til å skje. Ja, Hanne var gudskjelov høy på pæra, og dette, i kombinasjon med en serie nattlige drømmer om sin rolle som fortolker av Romerriket fikk henne til å skride til handling og søke opptak som masterstudent.

— Mitt følelsesliv er som en åpen bok by Kristine Næss

A strange thing had happened to Choubris Holse. He had become interested in what was, if he understood such matters rightly, not a million strides away from being philosophy.

— Matter by Iain M. Banks

Jeg viser tenna mine til han, liksom sånn man gjør når man smiler.

— Og forresten heter jeg Leah by Elida Karo

One day it will be considered unacceptable, in the polite liberal circles of the West, not to acknowledge all the innocent people killed in that long-ago unpleasantness. The truth and reconciliation committees are coming. The land acknowledgments are coming. The very sorry descendants are coming. After all, grief in arrears is grief just the same. Entire departments of postcolonial studies will churn out papers interrogating the obliviousness that led us all to that very dark place, as though no one had seen from the beginning exactly what that place was, as though no one had screamed warnings at the top of their lungs back when there was time to do something. One day the social currency of liberalism will accept as legal tender the suffering of those they previously smothered in silence, turned away from in disgust as one does carrion on the roadside. Far enough gone, the systemic murder of a people will become safe enough to fit on a lawn sign. There’s always room on a liberal’s lawn.

— One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (duplicate)