10 quotes
When all the good ideas have been expended, I quoted to myself, one might as well try a bad one.
Hespira (2009)
“Wealth tends to generate wealth,” he began.
I gave a qualified assent. “If it does not instead give birth to folly.”
Hespira (2009)
I reflected that the genial glow that surrounds the doer of a good deed loses some of its warmth and brightness when the recipient meets every action with the pinched face of suspicion.
Hespira (2009)
I realized that Chumblot’s brief had told only the official story which, as in many sophisticated societies, departed starkly from the practical facts.
Hespira (2009)
Half the miseries of humankind’s history have originated in those who think they see in the fellow next to them virtues and vices that exist only in the mind of the beholder.
Hespira (2009)
The combined effect of so many ambulatory sticks and balls, each of whom wore an expression of complete self-satisfaction, added strength to my longstanding belief that the profession of couturier required only a good knowledge of fabric and a malicious sense of humor.
Hespira (2009)
It is as hugely irrelevant to us as the literary outpourings of a poet are to a bacterium living in his lower bowel. Indeed, to an even tinier mite living in the bacterium’s vacuole. It just doesn’t matter.
Hespira (2009)
The insane had a tendency to cloak others in the strange garments they found hanging in the backs of their own mental wardrobes. So, for that matter, did the rest of us, but the consequences of error were usually less drastic.
Hespira (2009)
When we have done more traveling together, you will come to see that occasionally we must be other than forthright with local authorities. Many of them lack imagination and react poorly to creativity and unexpected innovation.
Hespira (2009)
My intent was to spot not only Massim Shar’s cut-out but the other member of his criminal coterie who would be there to watch our transaction. There might even be a watcher to watch the watcher, trust being a commodity in short supply among the lawless.”
Hespira (2009)