j-august

[j-august]

"I suppose all Londoners who survived the winter of 1940 with nerves unimpaired, did develop what the psychologists call 'a defence mechanism' - they learned to disregard disessential bangs."

E.C.R. Lorac, Checkmate to Murder

#quote #quotation #E.C.R. Lorac #Checkmate to Murder #London #the Blitz #defence mechanism #disessential bangs #nerves

[j-august]

The mind has many watchdogs; sometimes they bark unnecessarily, but a wise man never ignores their warning.

Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust

#quote #quotation #Arthur C. Clarke #A Fall of Moondust #mind #watchdogs #bark #warning

[j-august]

It was characteristic of Tom that one of the few men he really admired had never existed.

Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust

#quote #quotation #Arthur C. Clarke #A Fall of Moondust #characteristic #admiration #existence #Sherlock Holmes since you ask #pride #ego

[j-august]

Tom hated to admit defeat, even in matters far less important than this. He believed that all problems could be solved if they were tackled in the right way, with the right equipment. This was a challenge to his scientific ingenuity; the fact that there were many lives at stake was immaterial. Dr. Tom Lawson had no great use for human beings, but he did respect the Universe. This was a private fight between him and It.

Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust

#quote #quotation #Arthur C. Clarke #A Fall of Moondust #challenge #science #ingenuity #universe #fight

[j-august]

"You think yourself educated, but all you are is a repository of dead lives."

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Children of Dune #education #repository #dead lives #okay he meant this literally but it can also be applied to The Educated

[j-august]

It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nitpicking, the ferocious quibble over a comma.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

#quote #quotation #Children of DUne #decisions #experts #generalists #nitpicking #quibble #comma #chaos #the Mentat Handbook

[j-august]

"Philosophy should be approached with irreverence," Farad'n said.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Children of Dune #philosophy #irreverence #Farad'n #the fate of the Padisha Emperor's descendents is to be court historians

[j-august]

She felt small choice between hells: the outcry within her mind or the outcry from her attendants - all were pointless voices, but persistent in their demands, hourglass noises that she would like to silence with the edge of a knife.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Children of Dune #hell #choice #outcry #hourglass #persistent #pointless #demands #silence #St Alia of the Knife #Alia

[j-august]

Better the now than the future of a dream.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Children of Dune #now #present #future #dream

[j-august]

She felt that the desert had followed her wherever she had gone. Coming back to the desert was not so much a homecoming as a turning around to see what had always been there.

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #desert #Chani #homecoming

[j-august]

Hayt felt suddenly that he existed in a dream controlled by some other mind, and that he might momentarily forget this to become lost in the convolutions of that mind.

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #Hayt #Duncan Idaho #dream #control #forgetting #lost #convolutions

[j-august]

"I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grown bored reliving the thing so exactly."

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #apocalypse #dream #boredom #Paul Atreides

[j-august]

"I don't speak," Bijaz said. "I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own."

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #Bijaz #language #speak #operate #machine

[j-august]

Any delusions of Free Will he harbored now must be merely the prisoner rattling his cage. His curse lay in the fact that he saw the cage.

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #delusions #free will #prisoner #cage #the most passive emperor-god-jihadi-leader #sees the futures picks his future does what he's seen

[j-august]

She wasn't really very old, Paul saw, but a look of lost hopes ringed her mouth, bitterness lay in her eyes.

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #lost hopes #bitterness

[j-august]

Paul's foot caught in a low drift of sand across the street. For an instant, he felt mud clinging to the shoes of his childhood. Then he was back in the sand, in the dust-clotted, wind-muffled darkness with the Future hanging over him, taunting.

Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

#quote #quotation #Frank Herbert #Dune Messiah #Paul Atreides #nostalgia #mud #sand #darkness #future #taunting

[j-august]

Short story in Kaleidotrope

Not an April Fool’s! It’s ‘Charybdis’, a fun bouncy story about working in customer service, when all your customers are the supernatural type:

I was sitting at my desk with my feet up, filing my nails, when Martin Josephs walked in. Big man, black, probably a shifter with those eyes, probably a bear with those shoulders, he was looking around the dingy Victorian hall as if he might be trying to find the town council, then saw my desk under the pale fluorescent light and headed for me instead. I’d pegged him for a client straight away and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Unfortunately, I plumped for Cherry. He hesitated, and I swung Cherry’s legs down from the desk with aggravating slowness and gave him a bored pink lipstick smile. “Hi,” I said. “This is the Old World Advice Bureau. Can I help you?”

I love Kaleidotrope and feel very much at home there: everything in the zine is fun and worth reading.

#short story #fantasy #fiction #Julia August #Kaleidotrope