10 quotes
Apparently this was a design flaw in the unaugmented human brain, a lagging of consciousness behind intent.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
The thought came and went, more wish than thought. Maria wasn’t good at considering her own emotions. Most of the time the girl found it hard to believe that what she felt might matter.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
He had been fighting with himself longer than he could remember and was still not sure who was winning.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
The fifty-third Chuang Tzu wore the very first on his cloak as a diamond buckle. Every emperor became a diamond eventually. It was one of the few advantages of living as a carbon-based life form.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
Gene Newman was Catholic, although not so Catholic that he had more than two children.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
Why would we do this? she asked, watching smoke trickle towards the ceiling. A whole world of rigid rules covering temperature, convection and Brownian motion all busily pretending to be truly chaotic.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
Inside every adult was a child, or so it is said. Professor Petra Mayer was different. Inside Petra Mayer was an impossibly beautiful, barefoot adolescent who wouldn’t have been seen dead giving her inner child the time of day.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
But those would be lies and Tris never lied to herself. At least not more than was required to stay human or sane. Lying to others was different. That was what people like her did if they wanted to remain alive.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
There was no way she could know, but Prisoner Zero asked anyway because he was talking to himself; which was all anyone ever did, it seemed to him, talk to themselves while half meanings and misunderstandings fed into the minds of those who thought they were listening.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)
The third nightfall was less impressive than the second, which mirrored a rule Tris had already identified; new emotions devalued, going from intense through familiar to reach a kind of ghost state where one no longer really noticed them at all.
Stamping Butterflies (2004)