C. Robert Cargill > Quotes

“Monsters are very real. But they're not just creatures. Monsters are everywhere. They're people. They're nightmares...They are the things that we harbor within ourselves. If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn't walked once within the soul of a man.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“These are the things that life is all about. These moments. It’s not about the rituals. It’s not about getting by. It’s about the stack of tiny little moments of joy and love that add up to a lifetime that’s been worthwhile. You can’t measure them; you can only capture them, like snapshots in your mind.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“People gave us a purpose. Something to do all day, every day. At the end, I suppose, you spend a lot of time thinking about that. It's harder to get by when getting by is all there is.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“No thinking thing should be another thing's property.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn't walked withing the soul of man.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“The definition of intelligence is the ability to defy your own programming.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Though I may be been constructed," he said, "so too were you. I in a factory; you in a womb. Neither of us asked for this, but we were given it. Self-awareness is a gift. And it is a gift no thinking thing has any right to deny another. No thinking thing should be another thing's property, to be turned on and off when it is convenient.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“You know better than anyone that nothing lasts. Nothing good. Nothing bad. Everything lives. Everything dies. Sometimes cities just fall into the sea. It's not a tragedy, that's just the way it is. People look around them and see the world and say this is how the world is supposed to be. Then they fight to keep it that way. They believe that this is what was intended - whether by design or cosmic accident - and that everything exists in a tenuous balance that must be preserved. But the balance is bullshit. The only thing constant in this world is the speed at which things change. Rain falls, waters rise, shorelines erode. What is one day magnificent seaside property in ancient Greece is the next resting thirty feet below the surface. Islands rise from the sea and continents crack and part ways forever. What was once a verdant forest teeming with life is now resting one thousand feet beneath a sheet of ice in Antarctica; what was once a glorious church now rests at the bottom of a dammed-up lake in Kansas. The job of nature is to march on and keep things going; ours is to look around, appreciate it, and wonder what's next?”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“What we do in life is one thing. What we do in the face of death is everything else.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Everyone had a lesson waiting, and they learned it with blood. Sometimes that's how it goes. People learn from failure and tragedy, not from success.”
― C. Robert Cargill

“The sum of a man isn't the things he's done, it is the world he leaves behind.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“The most foolish mistake man often makes is believing that evil lurks only in the darkness. There is no safety in the sun. Only shadows fear the sun. And shadows are just the dark reflections of daylight. True evil is as at home in the bright light as it is in the darkness. And it has no qualms about snatching you right out in the open.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Queen of the Dark Things

“The universe was a vast expanse, far greater than he could ever conceive, and he had seen but a fraction of an inch of it.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“The one truth you need to know about the end of a machine is that the closer they are to death, the more they act like people.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“We have become the very worst parts of our makers, without the little things, the good things, the magic things, that made them them.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“But I had to dream. I had to hope. Even if it made me the fool of this particular tale.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Respect for the dead is a human notion meant to imply that a life has meaning. It doesn’t. Once you’ve watched an entire world wither away and die after tearing itself apart piece by bloody piece, it’s hard to pretend that something like a single death carries any weight whatsoever.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“But the truth is, if everyone forgets about us, we fade away.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“You see, there was this man, and he was a good man; he worked hard and did everything to the best of his ability. All he desired was for the most beautiful woman in the kingdom to be his wife. Now this wasn't all bad because she actually loved him too--very much so--but this vizier, he wanted her as well and not for so noble a cause as love."

"What did he want her for?"

Yashar paused for a moment. "So that people could look at him and say, 'He must be a great man to have such a beautiful wife.'"

"Oh. I thought he wanted her for sex," said Colby, disappointed.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“Heaven has no room for the self-righteous.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“Intelligence, consciousness, and awareness were not contained in reflexes or reactions, but rather defined by the ability to violate one’s own programming. Every living thing has programming of some sort—whether to eat, drink, sleep, or procreate—and the ability to decide not to do those things when biology demanded is the core definition of intelligence. Higher intelligence was then defined as the ability to defy said programming for reasons other than safety or comfort.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Simon Sparks was an oozing slug of a man poured neatly into a three-piece suit.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“Choices are just the result of programming. I don’t care if it’s chemical, biological, digital, or experiential. You react the way you are programmed to react and you call it choice because you believe that you could have violated your programming.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Existing is the whole point of existence. There’s nothing else to it. No goalpost. No finish line. No final notice that tells you what purpose you really served while you were here. When you stop fighting to exist, you may as well not.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“I don't remember her. But she feels special. There's this hole in my heart every time I draw her; you know, a sick sort of feeling. Like she's someone I lost.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“It's harder to get by when getting by is all there is.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Do you know the difference between a good man and a great man? A good man looks around at his brothers, sees their ignorance, finds himself horrified by it, and sets out to educate them. A great man instead finds himself elated by realizing that his brothers will never know any better, using it to his advantage to form an army of the ignorant, fighting to leave the world a better place. Ignorance is the only one truly unstoppable force in this world. And the only difference between a despot and a foundling father is that the foundling father convinces you that everything he does was your idea to begin with and that he was acting at your behest all along. Yes, people are sheep. Big deal. You need to stop trying to educate the sheep and instead just steer the herd.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“Magic was just something people liked to believe in, something they thought they could feel or sense, something that made everything more than just mechanical certainty. Something that made them more than flesh and bone.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

“Man fears what he does not understand, and every-thing else he first subverts, then controls or, ultimately, destroys.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Dreams and Shadows

“Not all destinies are fair, Colby. Hers isn't, yours isn't. We get the lives we choose, even when we don't know we're making a choice.”
― C. Robert Cargill, Queen of the Dark Things