Quotes from Joanna Kavenna

You won't get extra marks for being teacher's pet. You won't go to the top of the class. There is no class. There is no teacher. Or if there is then you have to understand that he or she doesn't actually like you. You are not being marked out of ten for how neatly you sharpen your pencil and how lovely your handwriting is. You are not going to get a gold star. You are not the fucking flower monitor and no one cares what you do.

The following morning she realised they hated her. That hurt her feelings; she always preferred her hatred to be unreciprocated.

These people could not be bailed out, of course, because the free market was free. Of course, at times of financial crisis the Government did, in fact, bail out the major institutions of the free market, but this did not in any way undermine the fundamental notion that the market must be free and this bailing out could, of course, not be extended to individuals within the free market. Some people are, alas, not intellectually capable of understanding arguments about such complex things.

Naturally the main reference is to Solomon's seven pillars of wisdom,' said Anthony. I saw he was smiling, broadly by now. 'These signify the seven sephiroth of the supra-celestial world, which are the seven measures of the fabric of the celestial and inferior worlds, in which are contained the Ideas of all things both in the celestial and inferior worlds. This should be clear?' I said it was completely clear as anything.

It was a perfect system, so long as the universe was deterministic and so long as humans did not make any errors.