Quotes from John C. Wright

A wasteland is a confrontation to a man of stature: an empty place, a gauntlet thrown down in challenge and defiance. A place like that cries out to be conquered and civilised.

Penny was a very pretty, witty and brave girl, as bold as a Marine platoon storming Iwo Jima.

Beyond this, to speak to the river and ask it why it runs, or to the sunshine and inquire of its cheer, or to command the raging storm be silent, this is a delight that saints and angels know which man, exiled from Eden, has lost. We are dumb and deaf in a world given to our dominion.

A sane accusation can be refuted. An insane accusation, one that makes no sense on any level, cannot be refuted, cannot even be addressed, because it is insolent nonsense. There is no sober way to defend oneself from the accusation of being a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

Being told that he was immune to flattery was the nicest thing he had heard someone say about him in a long time.

My mom once told me, back when I was a kid, that I would never understand girls unless I understood the fear of being lonely and alone. She said no girl would ever understand boys unless she understood the fear of being dishonored and defeated.

When power is the only coin, they said, you have nothing left to sell but your soul.

This world is behind enemy lines. Secret powers rule it. But they don't want to kill us with bombs or knives. They want even worse for us. They want to kill the better part of us, the part that hopes. Illnesses and accidents are weapons in their hands, weapons of despair, meant to turn our thoughts down and down to dark and dismal paths.

No morally imperfect human being(s), born into "the double darkness of sin and ignorance" could ever qualify for the position of Master Utilitarian Manipulator that Consequentialism needs to be put into practice.

Is ignorance so hard to bear, then? There is so very much in life we do not know … .

In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. —The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, no. 183

We call it Albion. It is the English-speaking world. The one where they kill babies in the womb, right?" And here I was hoping we'd be famous for the Moonshot, or democracy, or the Beatles, or something.

Indeed, I propose the idea that confusing strength with masculinity is in truth not a feminist ideal, but a misogynistic idea. He is no friend of woman who says women must act masculine to be equal to men, because that merely makes the word 'feminine' equal 'inferior'.

The first kind of problems are the ones life sends upon you to test you, to make you humble or make you longsuffering, or whatever you may need.

The second kind you make yourself. Most people, most of their lives, most of their problems, they simply invite into their lives, sweep out a guestroom for each pain, and give it free lodging and board.

The first kind builds character. You cannot grow without this kind of problem, any more than you can build muscles without exercise.

The second kind are invited by bad character, and the problems such a person has then cannot be put right until he puts himself right. It is not something a proud man can do, because proud men see no wrongness in themselves.

The suffering we bring on ourselves, we can ask to be taken away from us once we repent of it. The suffering sent to instruct us, we can ask for the strength to endure, and the humbleness to be instructed.

Son, different rules apply during the End of the World." I did not know what to say to that.

There he was, sipping tea from a dainty bulb, seated on a fresh-grown mat woven in the traditional style, with his hypnotic Warlock formulation-rod to one side, and his slate in reading mode on the other, tuned to the proper subchannels and ready with the proper routines, ready to undertake a thorough neural investigation, cleaning, and reconstitution. A tea-bulb, a mat, a rod, a brain interface. All the simple and basic necessities of life. He was beginning to feel like a civilized man again.

The Blue Man smiled. "Why not wipe out all life in the great dark beyond? All other life, that is. All the competition. They did not overlook or forget about the Earth! They cleared the fields for her. Then they traveled backward in time to restart the universe with Man on top, right at the initial condition set. Why not?

Truth destroys the worst in man; pleasure destroys the best. If you love truth more than happiness, then open; otherwise, let rest." His

Euryphaean, and the music of an instrument called a pianoforte, infinite resistance coil and the sanity glass, and all the inventions that sprang from

So it is not the danger that creeps people out. It is something else. Something uncanny. An aura of madness. Even with his face hidden, I could see Enmeduranki had it.