2b81ce9
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A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one.
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religion
philosophy
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Richard K. Morgan |
0e39689
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The personal, as everyone's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here - it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin...
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anti-establishment
inspirational
kickass
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Richard K. Morgan |
5a78ab7
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The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.
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Richard K. Morgan |
fe88e75
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If they asked how I died tell them: Still angry.
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Richard K. Morgan |
0c6d534
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The way I see it, anyone who's proud of their country is either a thug or just hasn't read enough history yet.
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Richard K. Morgan |
feb4c4b
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We all get our dreams stamped on from time to time, right? And if it didn't hurt, what kind of second-rate dreams would they be?
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Richard K. Morgan |
58f7e6e
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Culture is like a smog. To live within it, you must breathe some of it in and, inevitably, be contaminated.
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Richard K. Morgan |
9a321ed
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The personal, as everyone's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here - it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin...
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quellcrist-falconer
takeshi-kovacs
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Richard K. Morgan |
e9335c9
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Take what is offered and that must sometimes be enough.
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Richard K. Morgan |
9509985
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A weapon is a tool," she repeated, a little breathlessly. "A tool for killing and destroying. And there will be times when, as an Envoy, you must kill and destroy. Then you will choose and equip yourself with the tools that you need. But remember the weakness of weapons. They are an extension--you are the killer and destroyer. You are whole, with or without them."
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Richard K. Morgan |
30dbc32
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There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.
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Richard K. Morgan |
a2b2f77
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For all that we have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe is not stable, and nor is any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory. This is reality, this i..
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Richard K. Morgan |
8b2fd70
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it's just business, it's politics, it's the way of the world, it's a tough life and that it's nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.
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Richard K. Morgan |
e48dd69
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There should have been a better farewell. But in the end, there never is. And we take what meagre scraps we can find.
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goodbyes
farewell
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Richard K. Morgan |
f1b956b
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Every previous revolutionary movement in human history has made the same basic mistake. They've all seen power as a static apparatus, as a structure. And it's not. It's a dynamic, a flow system with two possible tendencies. Power either accumulates, or it diffuses through the system. In most societies, it's in accumulative mode, and most revolutionary movements are only really interested in reconstituting the accumulation in a new location...
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Richard K. Morgan |
9688b5d
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Pull on the new flesh like borrowed gloves and burn your fingers once again.
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Richard K. Morgan |
2d565f2
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You'll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don't have to think for themselves.
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Richard K. Morgan |
6685e1b
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Reality is so flexible these days, it's hard to tell who's disconnected from it and who isn't. You might even say it's a pointless distinction.
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Richard K. Morgan |
4929239
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When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him.
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Richard K. Morgan |
a9c34f3
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You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you're God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don't really matter anymore. You've seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you're standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you. And maybe you'll start snuffing those little people, just like picking daisies, if they get..
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Richard K. Morgan |
fa51228
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You smoke?" "Smoke? Do I look like a fucking idiot?"
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suicide
stupidity
cigarette
lung-cancer
slow-death
tobacco
cigarettes
health
idiocy
poison
smoking
idiot
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Richard K. Morgan |
b4da6fa
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The personal, as every one's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here--it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin...
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Richard K. Morgan |
02709dc
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I lay still for a while, picking up the scattered garments of my mind and trying to assemble some kind of reasonable outfit from them.
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Richard K. Morgan |
551eaa1
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The past is relevant only as data.
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Richard K. Morgan |
8b04cb3
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I am Welcomed in the Home of Ravens and Other Scavengers in the Wake of Warriors," Ringil recited for him, hollowly. "I am Friend to Carrion Crows and Wolves. I am Carry Me and Kill with Me, and Die with Me Where the Road Ends. I am not the Honeyed Promise of Length of Life in Years to Come, I am the Iron Promise of Never Being a Slave."
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Richard K. Morgan |
51ac194
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Catholics get on well with tyranny. It's in the culture.
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religion
humor
tyranny
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Richard K. Morgan |
74a70fc
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Face the facts. Then act on them. It's the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of . . . whatever. Face the facts. Then act. QUELLCRIST
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Richard K. Morgan |
025b0d4
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Kovacs to a female believer in New Revelation: "..I'm calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband's angle, he's a man, he's got everything to gain from this crapshit. But you? You've thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You'll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour an..
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religion
new-revelation
fundamentalism
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Richard K. Morgan |
5d61d20
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like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying.
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Richard K. Morgan |
1e64985
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It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped about me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death.
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Richard K. Morgan |
d629e26
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The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn't offer this assurance, so it's very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you're in control.
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Richard K. Morgan |
4370004
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the tongues of men are not much leashed by concerns for accuracy or truth.
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Richard K. Morgan |
2e9794f
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Well, fuck them. Make it personal.
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Richard K. Morgan |
0d033f3
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I walked beside the woman I had killed last week and tried to hold up my end of a conversation about cats. There
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Richard K. Morgan |
922f448
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You are still young and stupid. Human life has no value. Haven't you learned that yet, Takeshi, with all you've seen? It has no value, intrinsic to itself. Machines cost money to build. Raw materials cost money to extract. But people?" She made a tiny spitting sound. "You can always get some more people. they reproduce like cancer cells, whether you want them or not. They are abundant, Takeshi. Why should they be valuable? Do you know that ..
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Richard K. Morgan |
115af1b
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No such thing as time travel, he'd rumbled patiently, once. Only live with what you've done, and try in the future to do what you're happy to live with.
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zen
regret
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Richard K. Morgan |
bd8b0df
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What others believe is not my concern, unless they attempt to force it on me.
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Richard K. Morgan |
39227a3
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If you don't know the men at your back by name, don't be surprised if they won't follow you into battle. On the other hand, don't be surprised if they will, either, because there are countless other factors you must take into account. Leadership is a slippery commodity, not easily manufactured or understood.
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leadership-vs-management
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Richard K. Morgan |
889a503
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Where is the voice that said altered carbon would free us from the cells of our flesh? The vision that said we would be angels.
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Richard K. Morgan |
1d24d99
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Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead.
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life
zen
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Richard K. Morgan |
8be7263
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In any agenda, political or otherwise, there is a cost to be borne. Always ask what it is, and who will be paying. If you don't, then the agenda makers will pick up the perfume of your silence like swamp panthers on the scent of blood, and the next thing you know, the person expected to bear the cost will be you. And you may not have what it takes to pay. QUELLCRIST
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Richard K. Morgan |
e57bbea
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There's a sameness to streetlife. On every world I've ever been, the same underlying patterns play out, flaunt and vaunt, buy and sell, like some distilled essence of human behavior seeping out from whatever clanking political machine has been dropped on it from above.
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political
human-behaviour
patterns
planets
streetlife
worlds
science-fiction
machines
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Richard K. Morgan |
340b47f
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it's amazing how constant repetition can make even the most obvious truths irritating enough to disagree with.
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Richard K. Morgan |
ac31b32
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There are no alternatives. You live with what is. And you don't let your ghosts rent room in your head.
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Richard K. Morgan |