Quotes from Noah Hawley

On the edge of things was the sound of the ocean, that tectonic drum, the heartbeat of the earth.

In this way he used her as the North Star on a journey where you always want to go south. It was helpful, aligning himself in this way. It gave him something to tune to, like a violin to a piano.

Everybody has a theory, Judge Nadir has come to believe. A conviction, dogged and tenacious, which they refuse to surrender. This is the American way.

It's hard to be sad when you're being useful. And he liked that idea. That service to others brought happiness.

But in the same way a man's nose and ears become exaggerated as he ages, so do the psychological issues that define him. We

What's a handshake after all, except a socially acceptable way to make sure the other guy doesn't have a knife behind his back

As Albert Einstein once said, "What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

and wanders

Paul Slovic, another moral philosopher, agrees. He says empathy is a poor tool for improving the lives of others, because the human mind is bad at thinking about, and empathizing with, millions or billions of individuals

That it is impossible to be useful and sad.

We choose our reality, you see, just as we choose our god.

Perhaps the Enlightenment itself was a psychotic break. The belief that all things could be measured

Give, they told the world, don't take. They knew what we didn't. That it is impossible to be useful and sad.

There is no separating yourself from the things you make, he thought. If you are a cesspool, what else can your work be except shit?

mortal man. He saw a being

You have kids and you think I made you, so we're the same, but it's not true. You just get to live with them for a while and maybe help them figure things out.

But what good is living if the life you lead is brittle and dead?

Whether you believe you're suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome or that 9/11 was an inside job, the World Wide Web exists to tell you you're right. You are always right.

You need hope to form a thought. It takes—I don't know—optimism to speak, to engage in conversation. Because, really, what's the point of all this communicating? What difference does it really make what we say to each other?

These aren't mistakes," says the Prophet. "This isn't Oh, I must have heard God wrong. This is opportunism. This is twisting His will to corrupt ends. Because people are corrupt. Adults.

We want relationships to last. We want families to stay together. We like it when the good guy wins. Fairy tales. I'm describing fairy tales.

In the absence of facts, we tell ourselves stories.

You need hope to form a thought. It takes—I don't know—optimism to speak, to engage in conversation. Because, really, what's the point of all this communicating? What difference does it really make what we say to each other? Or what we do, for that matter?

In the absence of facts, he thinks, we tell ourselves stories.