Richard K. Morgan > Quotes

“A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels

“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. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that 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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“If they asked how I died tell them: Still angry.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“Culture is like a smog. To live
within it, you must breathe some of it in and, inevitably, be
contaminated.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“Take what is offered and that must sometimes be enough.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that 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.

Quellcrist Falconer
Things I Should Have Learned by Now, Volume II”
― Richard K. Morgan

“The way I see it, anyone who's proud of their country is either a thug or just hasn't read enough history yet.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Thirteen

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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?”
― Richard K. Morgan, Woken Furies

“There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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 is self knowledge, and the perception of it will, of course, make you dizzy.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“... 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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“You’ll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don’t have to think for themselves.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“There should have been a better farewell. But in the end, there never is. And we take what meagre scraps we can find.”
― Richard K. Morgan, The Dark Defiles

“You smoke?”
“Smoke? Do I look like a fucking idiot?”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“Pull on the new flesh like borrowed gloves
and burn your fingers once again.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it PERSONAL. Do as much damage as you can. GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference, the ONLY difference in their eyes, between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that 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.

 
QUELLCRIST FALCONER

Things I Should Have Learnt by Now

Volume II”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“The past is relevant only as data.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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. A genuine revolution has to reverse the flow. And no one ever does that, because they’re all too fucking scared of losing their conning tower moment in the historical process. If you tear down one agglutinative power dynamic and put another one in its place, you’ve changed nothing. You’re not going to solve any of that society’s problems, they’ll just reemerge at a new angle. You’ve got to set up the nanotech that will deal with the problems on its own. You’ve got to build the structures that allow for diffusion of power, not re-grouping. Accountability, demodynamic access, systems of constituted rights, education in the use of political infrastructure”
― Richard K. Morgan, Woken Furies

“like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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 under your feet.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“Catholics get on well with tyranny. It's in the culture.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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”
― Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, The Steel Remains

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, The Cold Commands

“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 it costs us less to recruit and use up a real snuff whore than it does to set up and run the virtual equivalent format. Real human flesh is cheaper than a machine. It's the axiomatic truth of our times.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

“War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price? And perhaps more importantly, once you get out, will you be any better off?"
- Quellcrist Falconer”
― Richard K Morgan