J.C. Ryan > Quotes

“No legitimate field of study should be suppressed because of academic politics.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. I know it wasn't just fringe lunatics, and the people behind the scenes might have been more successful had the time been right. They didn't prepare well enough, and the movement collapsed. But a few of the leaders had made some serious money. They went underground. I believe what we're seeing here is a resurgence. I haven't even shown you what I've discovered about communications. The same thing's happening there, worldwide.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“screen filled with symbols, only this time it was Arabic letters that meant nothing to him. He assumed they meant nothing to Raj as well, and was therefore surprised when Raj pointed out a short sequence. “This is the word for ‘person’ or ‘human being’.” Daniel stared at Raj. “You know Arabic?” “No, not really. I have read Nizar Qabbani in translation, and this word is a particularly beautiful shape, is it not?” “Still waters run deep, Raj. So you read Arabic love poetry. I wouldn’t have ever guessed.” Raj blushed. “Sushma is more woman than I can handle without help,” he admitted. “Qabbani writes more than just love poetry. It is quite erotic.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“we have met our end because we did not pay attention, we gave away our freedom, we gave away our blood. We became slaves because of our unwillingness to give up our decadent life of luxury and carelessness for our fellow humans.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“You can always count on the government to do the right thing, after it’s tried everything else.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“aerial photo had been taken at just the right time. It was now known that at dawn and sunset on the spring and fall equinoxes, a shadow appears in such a way as to divide the pyramid in half, and the concavity that divides each side on the center line is revealed.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“the numbers in awe as Mark rearranged them according to the location of their blocks. It was like watching an animation of a Scrabble game, as the numbers that represented letters slid into their respective places one by one. It was easy to see that there were gaps. “We need the rest of the blocks.” “Yes, we do. Obviously ten letters isn’t enough for an alphabet. Do you know what language this code would have been in?”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“I’ve often wondered if time is real. The physicists are beginning to dispute that, you know. They view what we experience as time more as us traveling along a continuum that exists all at once, like we’re on a conveyor belt, being carried past all these events that are static. They’ve always existed, it’s only us happening upon them that make us experience time.”
― JC Ryan, The Sword of Cyrus

“If a citizen tried to tamper with the tracker (as the group were now calling it) or remove it that citizen would be dead very quickly. If someone did not eat the food or take the medicine at the time he was supposed to, he would get severe pains, something like the shocks from a dog’s bark collar, Robert suggested. The others stared at him in horror. Who used those these days? He quickly went back to the reading. If a citizen kept on ignoring the prompts, the pain would get more severe and in the end would just be killed if he didn’t “listen”.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“this environment is ripe for enslaving the minds of ninety percent of the earth's inhabitants by those who would exploit it for their own ends?” “I do. It’s happened so slowly, compared to the growth of technology that almost no one noticed.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“the Great Pyramid is precisely located in the center of the land mass of the earth, could it be a coincidence that the curvature built into the sides of the pyramid exactly match the radius of the earth?”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“these people have computing power that will be able to crack even AES encryption in a matter of hours. Our government has made it difficult in the extreme to legally distribute programs that will encrypt even to that level, and our cipher is nowhere near that powerful. All they would have to do is read one of our messages and then perform trial and error runs on computers that would put a Cray supercomputer to shame. It would take days, perhaps, but not a week.” “So you think we should make ourselves scarce until you find out more.” “Yes, I do. What makes it even more alarming, is that if it is our government that is after you, they could easily make you disappear, but recent developments mean that even more nefarious groups may know of the government’s interest.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“We leave this monument for your enlightenment. However, our leader has decreed that it must be coded in such a way that it may not be read until you have achieved a measure of civilization to equal our own. Know this: if wars still disturb the peace of your world, you will not be able to escape the destruction that will come in the fullness of your cycle.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“Deuteronomy this time. “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
― JC Ryan, The Sword of Cyrus

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s Relativity’.”
― J.C. Ryan, Donna Teresa

“him,”
― J.C. Ryan, Unchained

“We of the Tenth Cycle believe that we have achieved more than any Cycle before us, and, knowing our fate, wish to leave evidence of our knowledge. With this knowledge, perhaps you, our children, may continue our progress and stop the cycles of destruction that have held our kind to less than our full potential for ..." Again, Sinclair paused, "Some number again, I can't make it out. Then, 'years.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“Given the breadth of the population that's on the internet, they could shift world opinion in hours, determine the outcome of elections, bring down the stock market, whatever they wanted. And no one would be the wiser.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“Stevens. “Are you saying you’re planning”
― J.C. Ryan, The Delphi Technique

“the internet, the media with the most potential for honest news and understanding of the world, had become one large scam or a place to watch funny videos that showed the same animal behavior for the entertainment of the masses.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me’ declares the Lord.”
― JC Ryan, The Sword of Cyrus

“This sequence will have to be put through all its iterations, starting with each of the thirty-four letters or symbols we come up with at the top right corner. Then we need to repeat the process from left to right and bottom to top just in case.” “Why not do the same thing reading down in columns instead of across in rows?” Sarah asked. “We should, with the same process; right to left, left to right, top to bottom, and bottom to top.” “How about diagonal?” Daniel’s question was meant to be a little sarcastic, as he contemplated the painstaking work involved. “Good point,”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“Jeremiah’s prophecy had predicted what would happen. “Thus saith the Lord to…Cyrus…I will…open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” So had the prophets prophesied, and so it came to pass. The enormous gates that barred entrance from the riverbed to the streets that crossed the river were carelessly left open. While the Babylonians feasted and drank, once again fulfilling prophecy, Cyrus and his invaders casually walked into the city without challenge. “I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.”
― JC Ryan, The Sword of Cyrus

“As far as we know in the history of this cycle, the first human being to set foot on Antarctica was an American sealer named Capt. John Davis, in 1821." "Is it possible," asked Sinclair, "that parts of the historical record are missing?" "Anything's possible, but when scholars came across this map in Turkey in 1929, they speculated that it had been drawn from even earlier documents that are now unknown. My thought is that perhaps those earlier documents dated from the 10th Cycle somehow. What I'd like to find in the library is confirmation that the 10th Cyclers knew of Antarctica, and perhaps that they left representations of the geography of the globe that were known earlier in our own cycle.”
― JC Ryan, Ninth Cycle Antarctica

“The truth or lack thereof wasn't the point. The point was that no one could believe anything they saw in print or even in a photo anymore, but everyone believed anything they were told often enough, with or without facts to back it up. What could have been the greatest boon to mankind, an archive of every bit of human knowledge, free for the asking, had become the greatest disinformation machine in the history of mankind.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“So, we’re looking for a language resembling Arabic. How many letters does Arabic have?” “Twenty-eight, if I’m not mistaken. But, look, there could be diacritical marks and punctuation marks as well. If we include those, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the 34 that you say is the highest expression of the blocks Raj has done so far…” “Represents an alphabet that we can eventually understand, at least phonetically,”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle

“Another surprising fact was that it was the brightest continent, despite being in darkness for most of six months of the year. That was balanced by it being daylight for the other six months.”
― JC Ryan, Ninth Cycle Antarctica

“We used to pride ourselves on balanced reporting. When I worked there, I mean. But now, the editors seem to have hand-picked a Presidential candidate and all the stories are about how great he is and how lame all the others are. What’s that all about? It’s like they’re trying to brainwash the public. And it’s not just the news site itself. A lot of the reporters have Facebook pages, and that’s all they post, too.” Salome was nodding. “I’ve observed the same. Let me guess. The hand-picked candidate is the incumbent, yes?”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“The “thing” in their hands not only kept them in touch, but it directed the lives of Eighth Cycle citizens. They would just swipe their hands past an “eye” at the “storehouses” where they would get their food and supplies. A device not only registered but controlled what they obtained. It also reminded them when to go in to see a doctor, which Joseph had mentioned to Sinclair was designated by the Athabaskan word for shaman. Within this part of the information was a great deal of detail about medicines, ceremonies and other archaic notions of medicine. Sinclair suspected the Athabaskan words concealed something sinister with regard to the constant monitoring of every citizen’s health.”
― JC Ryan, The Skywalkers

“There are only eight numbers. They repeat.” “That’s right, and it’s amazing that we could calculate this with only one hundred examples. Despite every block being a slightly different size and shape, calculating the ratios gets us only eight different ones, and the same thing happens when we divide the circumference by the ratio as a percentage. Furthermore, the eight unique numbers that result from that calculation are all Fibonacci numbers.”
― J.C. Ryan, The 10th Cycle