An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.
He was one of those men... who know in their hearts that for all their edgy, belligerent hardness they are just unhappy kids, emotional retards.
Though drones, avatars and even humans are one thing; the loss of any is not without moral and diplomatic import, of course, but might be dismissed as merely unfortunate and regrettable, something to be smoothed over through the usual channels. Attacking a ship, on the other hand, is an unambiguous act of war.
All I said was that I thought it was a judgement from God that Blyth had first lost his leg and then had the replacement become the instrument of his downfall. All because of the rabbits. Eric, who was going through a religious phase at the time which I suppose I was to some extent copying, thought this was a terrible thing to say; God wasn’t like that. I said the one I believed in was.
The catechisms also tell the truth about who I am, what I want and how I feel, and it can be unsettling to hear yourself described as you have thought of yourself in your most honest and abject moods, just as it is humbling to hear what you have thought about in your most hopeful and unrealistic moments.
There’s this sloth in the jungle walking from one tree to another, and it’s mugged by a gang of snails, and when the police ask the sloth if it could identify any of its attackers, it says, ‘I don’t know; it all happened so quickly...
That would require faith. I do not beliebe in faith. I believe it exists but I do not believe it works. I don’t know what the rules are here; I can’t risk throwing everything away on a long shot.
It occurred to me then, as it has before, that that is what men are really for. Both sexes can do one thing specially well; women can give birth and men can kill.
Once you get over the simple unpleasantness of it – I suspect most people would gag, the first time – it is easier to wipe somebody else’s bum than it is your own, because you can see what you’re doing and use both hands at once if necessary. The whole process is much more efficient and uses no more toilet paper than is strictly required, so it’s better for the environment, too. If we were really green we’d all have somebody else wipe our bums, though I can’t see it catching on.
This is so much like the old days. And, again, I have mixed feelings. In some ways it’s good and comfortable to be fitting straight back in like I’ve never been away, but, on the other hand, I’m getting this constrictive feeling as well. It’s the same places – like the bars and pubs on Friday night – the same people, the same conversations, the same arguments and the same attitudes. Five years away and not much seems to have changed. I can’t decide if this is good or bad.
Hair on a man’s head is like the opposite of salt in a dish; you can take it away but you can’t add it in.
Future became Present, Present became Past. A truth so banal, so obvious and accepted that he had somehow managed to ignore it before.
I brought my face up and put my head back, baring my neck to the wind like a lover, to the rain like an offering.
Aye,’ McCann said ruefully, ’if yer rich yer just eccentric; if yer poor yer a nutcase an they stick ye in the bin.
This is not a long bridge, but it goes on for ever. I am not far from the bank, but I will never get there. I walk but I never move. Fast or slow, running, turning, doubling back, jumping, throwing myself or stopping; nothing makes any difference.
Perhaps he just got fed up acting normal and decided to act crazy instead, and they locked him up because he went too far.
I still don’t understand fashion. Why do people dress up in new styles in the first place if they’re only going to act all embarrassed and ashamed about them later?
There are times when you can’t do the sensible thing, when you can’t act like a responsible adult at all; you just have to do whatever insane thing comes into your head. When bad people do it they end up murderers, when good people do it they end up heroes, and when the rest of do it we end up looking like total idiots. But when’s that ever stopped us?
I luv the ded, this old baster sez to me when I wiz tryin to get some innfurmashin out ov him. You fukin old pervirt I sez, gettin a bit fed up by this time enyway, an slit his throate; ah asks you whare the fukin Sleeping Byootie woz, no whit kind of humpin you lyke.
Thinking what had happened over in my mind, trying to figure out the whys and wherefores, see what lessons were to be learned, what signs to be read in it all.
He would never forget the feeling of that first year, the sense of freedom just being on his own gave him. He had his own room for the first time, his own money to spend as he wanted, his own food to buy and places to go and decisions to make; it was glorious, sublime.