Kage Baker

“Smashing things is the violent way stupid mortal monkeys solve their problems.”

“Imagine being told that it hadn’t mattered whether the Christians or the Moors got Spain! I can still remember my shock. I got over it fairly quickly, though, because by that time I had learned enough history to know that in the long run it never mattered a damn where any particular race of people planted its collective ass.”

“The leaf that spreads in the sunlight is the only holiness there is. I haven’t found holiness in the faiths of mortals, nor in their music, nor in their dreams: it’s out in the open field, with the green rows looking at the sky. I don’t know what it is, this holiness: but it’s there, and it looks at the sky.”

“And what a clever guy this Harpole is, isn’t he? Awfully good at noticing all kinds of little unusual things about people and keeping them on file in his head. So he’s built a theory around us, has he? He added two and two and came up with five, but nobody else in the house was aware there was anything to count.”

“How could millennia-old superbeings be so boring?”

“I may cut my coat to follow fashion, sir, but not my conscience.”

““They find us outlandish,” Lopez admitted. “Extravagant. Eclectic. Unfathomable.””

““Like children, they’re bored by complicated things. More than bored: they feel threatened. Give a child mashed potatoes and butter, and he’s happy. He doesn’t want to try the rich sauce with capers, in fact he’ll cry if he’s forced to taste it. You see what I mean?But, listen, Joseph. A child is easy to control. Keep him happy, and he’ll believe what he’s told to believe.””

“Has there ever been a revolution that produced something better than what it overthrew? The only thing people learn from being oppressed is how to oppress others!”

“When you hear a story, do you believe only the nice parts? Truth isn’t like a baked fish, where you can eat the flesh and leave the bones and skin. You have to eat it all.”

“The awful bottom line, of course, is that if you’re going to rule the world, you have to have absolute power, and everybody knows what absolute power does.”

“True believers aren’t real receptive to the idea that what they’re telling you is just mythology.”

“When you laugh at something, you don’t fear it anymore.”

“The same intact culture that made them good businessmen also made many of them lousy parents.”

“I’ve been in the entertainment industry ever since, in one capacity or another. It’s better than the Inquisition. Usually.”

“Faith and its attendant rituals sound like a good deal, the whole eternal salvation thing, but inevitably they lead to fear, oppression, the rack and flames.”

“Ah, Los Angeles. One disaster after another, always has been.”

“I looked up at several pockmarks in the nearest wall; if they weren’t bullet holes, the place had damned big hailstones.”

““Sight-seeing is the art of disappointment,” I quoted.”

“I had a productive day, without the distraction of conversation.”

“Did you know what would happen next? Did you know and sit there like God, silent, remorseless, useless?”

“His nation of liberty was founded on the backs of Negro slaves and at the cost of exterminating the aborigines. As far as I can tell, the Yankee’s idea of freedom is his right to carry a pistol with which he may shoot strangers in the street.”

“Privilege tends to soften the brain, or so I’ve observed.”

“A missionary may persuade a painted savage to worship a cross rather than an idol; but he will not make laws that send that savage’s children to school, where they might learn to make the desert they inhabit another Eden by means of the advanced sciences. He may persuade his flock to love one another for his God’s sake, but he’ll invariably urge them to slaughter any neighboring tribe that still worships stone idols. This is the failure of religion as a force for the common welfare.”

“Any brute will demand his right to be a law unto himself, beating his wife and his children as he pleases, and defend that right with his father’s rifle and think himself a patriot.”

““And when there is peace at last, and when men are no longer distracted by the ravages of war and crime, then the real work begins. Mankind has grasped at science and invention to improve his lot; when he truly understands that he can wield those tools to improve himself, he will lay the cornerstone of the earthly paradise,” Edward said. “What might not science achieve, in a world where a nation’s resources weren’t continually drained by strife?”

“Times had changed.Sooner or later, they always did.”

“Is God a cruel bastard or what, to make love so painful?”

““You’ve no appreciation of high romance, that’s your trouble,” Lewis said, climbing in and starting the motor. Joseph nodded somberly. “Boy meets girl, girl loses boy, everybody dies. I just don’t get it.””

“Terrorism was too tame for the Scots: they used lawyers.”

““There,” Joseph said. “There’s your answer.”“It’s not an answer, little man. It’s many, many more questions.””

“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any stranger, I was proven wrong.”

“You have to be pretty damned hot and thirsty to enjoy a soy-milk smoothie, but they were, so it was okay.”

“It was growing dusk, the blue hour when solid things take on a certain transparency and phantoms become palpable.”

“It didn’t matter that they were terrible at being parents; they were also very rich, which meant they could pay other people to love Alec.”

““Isn’t that a little hard on him? You’re not only making him feel bad about something he didn’t do, you’re making him feel bad about something that didn’t even shracking happen.”“I believe churches used to call it original sin,” Rutherford agreed, looking crafty. “But what does it matter, if it serves to make him a better man?””

““How, in this day and age, can any one of you claim to be better than your fellow human beings?”“Because we are,” said Marilyn Deighton-True with a shrug. “Face reality, Giles, or it will face you. You can spout all the socialiste nouveau crap you like, but it simply doesn’t apply to a meritocracy.””

““Alec is beautiful,” said Jill, bending down to kiss him.“Like a mushroom cloud!” scoffed Balkister.”

“Rutherford was a historian, after all, and secretly enjoyed it when the truth did injury to modern sensibilities.”

“He caught his breath, absorbing the impact of the scientific discoveries, the advances in scholarship, the inevitable dwindling into insignificance of issues that had mattered more than his life. He closed his eyes, turned his face away, but he couldn’t stop his understanding.“You see?” said Edward. “They’re all happy pagans nowadays. When they take the trouble to worship at all. Enlightenment swept most of that nonsense away, and good riddance!””

““Consigned to everlasting fire,” said Nicholas in a faint voice. He had gone white as chalk.“No, you medieval imbecile!” Edward clenched his fists. “You still have no grasp of the truth, have you? Leave your angels and devils in the trash of history, where they belong.””

““When will you stop this metaphysical nonsense?” said Edward wearily. “But I suppose you’ve no other way to look at the matter, born as you were in an age of superstitious piety.””

“It takes thousands of them to create an archive of human wisdom; only one to set a torch to it. Wouldn’t you have to say, then, that the work of the librarians is more typical of mortal behavior than the work of the arsonist?”

“Doubtless he was going to start bragging about being a god. It went with the profile of this sort of lunatic.”

“It’s sad when people are stupid.”

““I will say this once.” Edward turned to the others. “I’m in command on this mission. Do not, at any time, attempt to wrest control from me. If what you see dismays you, avert your eyes.””

“The Rogue Cyborg is doing serious Rogue Cyborg stuff. He’s crouched before a data terminal as though it were an ancient altar, and from the look on his face what he’s praying for is desperate and bloody revenge.”

““So, um...are you alone out here?”“I was,” she said.”

“A generation before, it had been sagebrush and coyotes; a generation later, it was a burgeoning movie town. But for that brief idyllic time in 1910, Hollywood looked like the perfect place for a successful writer to settle down, build his dream house, and maybe do some gardening.”

““This is insane,” she said. “Why would mortals make it so difficult to get two little glasses of white wine?”“Human nature, my love.” Edward grinned and set his knee against hers under the tablecloth. “The desire of a few to dictate morality to the whole. And why do the masses submit willingly? Apathy. Or, perhaps, the opportunity to experience the thrill of the forbidden!””

“Justice doesn’t exist! We did worse things. Nobody deserves to go to that place, Alec said. Anyway, weren’t you Christian types supposed to forgive everybody?No wonder nobody’s left that believes in your stupid religion, said Alec.”

“That is one dark house your God lives in, man. Alec shook his head. You can keep your Age of Faith. Whyn’t you find somebody to worship who isn’t a shracking psychopath?”

““Why did I never understand...”“Mm, but so much worse...Delusion. Because, the thing is—human progress begins, not with one lone man with a weapon, however heroic. Nor with subtle governments, be they never so altruistic. It begins with a man and his wife in bed...and...how could I ever hope to govern humanity, without having been even that human?”

““Oh, that’s childish,” says Nicholas in disgust.“Well, so what?” says Alec. “We happen to be children.””

““That wasn’t very godly,” Alec calls up to him.“Well,” says Alec cautiously, “I would think that was a good thing. Shouldn’t you have grown out of this by now? What do you want meaning in the universe for, anyway? Nothing means anything! We’re just here to go along for the adventure.””

““Edward has a purpose for us. Ruling the world, I assume.”“He can’t,” says Alec, aghast. “That’s what villains do!””

“Edward raises the pointer and places its tip against Alec’s forehead. “What’s the use of having a library in there if you won’t open the books, boy? What’s the good of augmented intelligence if you won’t use it?””

“Edward holds up a hand for silence. “If you please, Captain: he’s thinking. Let us savor the exquisite rarity of the moment.””

“He saw in memory Mendoza’s face, her black eyes sad as she downloaded a chapter on revolutions.Here you go. Great heroes and the things they wrecked. Always easier to destroy something than to create something. It’s harder to plant a garden than to blow up a building, and undoubtedly more boring, but you just might need to do it one day, eh?”

““Why should we obey you?” Budu asked.“Because I’m, er, omnipotent,” said Alec.”