Random Book Quotes

It took a great deal to ruin a duke. Slave trading, domestic abuse, murder, kidnapping, rape… so long as these crimes were done to the right people, the most that would happen was a slap on the wrist or perhaps a fine. King Edgar II wouldn’t care if Duke Albert was eating babies daily, so long as they weren’t important babies.

In the end, the peak talents—the absolute best of the best—of any field had some ratio of genius, hard work, and luck. Almost none completely lacked in any one of those categories.

Anyway, give me a trash heap over a grave any day. A grave tells you how people act when they’re on their best behavior in front of Death. Trash heaps tell you how they actually lived.

She had not needed Magnolia to become cruel. She had already been practicing. Only in small ways, yes. Childish ways. Tantrums, demands, sharp words. But how did a girl who screamed over jam become a girl who locked someone in a conservatory? Slowly, perhaps. With everyone bowing. With everyone forgiving. With every small cruelty softened by adults who called it temperament.

I read in a book once that siblings show each other affection by picking on each other. I love you a whole bunch, and you need to know.

My heart does a little flip when I see someone selling the exact same thing I have for $150! Except on the first page of search results, they’re not. They’re trying to sell the exact same thing for $150. Scroll down and look on the left-hand side of the page. Look for two words: Completed listings. Completed listings matter. Nothing else does in your search for reality.

Anyone who treats others was a good person. Well, they were at least better than the ones who didn’t.

I reckon with your artistic sense, you’ll soon become the best shape-shifter this world will never notice.

To snap out of truth-default mode requires what Levine calls a “trigger.” A trigger is not the same as a suspicion, or the first sliver of doubt. We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.

Regular people care about things like having a good life, eating well, talking with friends, and finding love. The elite care about power and control. They obsess over it, and are terrified of losing it.

If we don’t know the stories behind the stuff, we will never be able to freely let go of it.

But being the least evil genocidal slaver still meant that you were a genocidal slaver.

The armadillo had not known many murderers in his life, but he had a feeling that once you started killing people for fun, you didn’t stop.

“Fate so does love to weave her tangled tapestries. Never trust a coincidence. That advice has done me well in this life.”

"Tarot is... well, it's not really a game or even just a tool. It's a way to tap into the unseen threads that weave through our lives. Think of it as a mirror—one that doesn't just show your reflection, but the reflection of your thoughts, your emotions, and even the choices ahead of you."

When a space is decluttered, that space is comparatively organized. If I remove the things we don’t need, there’s nothing getting in the way of things we do need. We can function in that space. We can use it. And isn’t that the goal of organizing?

‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war and then seek to win.’