“You were fucking magnificent, Oraya,' he murmured. 'I hope you know that.”
Source: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
“I've lived through some injustices in the last couple of centuries. Seen some fucking travesties. But one of the biggest, Oraya, is that anyone taught you that you should become anything other than exactly what you are.”
Source: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
“We'll probably die tomorrow,' I said. 'Show me something worth living for.”
Source: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
“If we fight, we fight to the end. Whatever end that might be Whoever's blood needs to spill to win it.”
Source: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
“Maybe that was why I picked you, too. Because right away, I liked you, princess. I was curious about you. You reminded me of me. Someone different. After a few hundred years, everyone seems the same. Not you. Not from that first night...”
Source: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
“There is a tension between what is good for someone and what they want to do. This is because people, especially older people, like to do things as they've always done them. The problem is that when the brain develops ingrained habits, it doesn't need to think anymore. Things get done very quickly and efficiently on automatic pilot, often in a very advantageous way. This creates a tendency to stick to routines, and the only way of breaking these is to confront the brain with new information.”
Source: Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz
“Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely reflex action of the nervous system. Our eyelid closes before we are aware that the fly is about to enter our eye.”
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“For every dollar that is spent on the (boondoggle) bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000, 000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.”
Source: Economics in One Lesson
“Necessary policemen, firemen, street cleaners, health officers, judges, legislators and executives perform productive services as important as those of anyone in private industry. They make it possible for private industry to function in an atmosphere of law, order, freedom and peace. But their justification consists in the utility of their services. It does not consist in the "purchasing power" they possess by virtue of being on the public payroll.”
Source: Economics in One Lesson
“A person living in everyone else's style reacts only to stimulus”