Jaron Harris > Jaron's Quotes

“Now that it’s too late, now that I lie here dying on this bloodstained sand, I finally get it.

I understand, now.

I understand. I know what he meant. My father told me that to know
the enemy is half the battle. I know you, now. That’s right.

It’s you.

All of you who sit in comfort and watch me die, who see the twitch of
my bowels through my own eyes: You are my enemy.

Corpses lie scattered around me, gleanings left in a wheat field by a careless reaper. Berne’s body cools beneath the bend of my back, and I can’t feel him anymore. The sky darkens over my head—but no, I think that’s my eyes; Pallas’ light seems to have faded.

Every drop of the blood that soaks into this sand stains my hands and the hands of the monsters that put me here.

That’s you, again.

It’s your money that supports me, and everyone like me; it’s your lust that we serve.

You could thumb your emergency cut-off, turn your eyes from the screen, walk out of the theatre, close the book . . .

But you don’t.

You are my accomplice, and my destroyer.

My nemesis.

My insatiable blood-crazed god.

Ah, ahhh, Christ . . . it hurts.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Heroes Die

“Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult”
― Carl Von Clausewitz

“The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.”
― Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 1832

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord but this morning He's going to fucking well have to share.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Caine Black Knife

“War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.”
― Carl von Clausewitz, On War

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Once you sand the corners off consequences, people start to get really fucking weird.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover, Caine Black Knife

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
― Sun Tzu

“If quick, I survive.
If not quick, I am lost.
This is "death.”
― Sun Tzu

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”
― Lao Tzu

“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“It's not always easy to distinguish between existentialism and a bad mood.”
― Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle

“Everything I tell you is a lie."

-Vergere”
― Matthew Stover, Traitor

“Being old enough to know better but still too young to resist mostly sucks.”
― Matthew Stover, Caine's Law

“I fear Michaelson not at all. Michaelson is a fiction, you fools. The truth of him is Caine. You do not comprehend the distinction; and so he will destroy you.”
― Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle

“A lie is like a pet- you have to take care of it, or it'll turn on you and bite you in the ass.”
― Matthew Stover, Heroes Die

“The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used. We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them--but it's foolishly naive to expect wolves to obey.”
― Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle

“It is the way, isn't it? With humans and free thought. They only learn through terrible mistakes. Free thought does not make wisdom. Instead it creates enough space for men to commit terrible folly, from which the survivors learn through disaster.”
― Joel Shepherd, Tracato

“You mean one human is good, but a hundred humans is bad?"

"Exactly. One human is just a person. A hundred humans make a society. And societies have kings, and religions and priests, and all these other things serrin completely fail to understand”
― Joel Shepherd, Petrodor

“If I have to make moves in her, we'll all get bloody. You, go wake up Raithe. Tell him Hari's waiting to see him. He'll come with you."
"Hari?" He frowned like he wasn't sure if he was being kidded. "Of what abbey? In what land?"
"Hari of Do as You're Told in the land of And Shut the Fuck Up.”
― Matthew Stover, Caine's Law

“The author respectfully dedicates this book to everyone who is almost as smart as they think they are.”
― Matthew Stover, Test of Metal

“There's only really two things about a man that matter: what he wants, and what he'll do to get it. Everythin' else we pretend is important--whether you're tough, or good-lookin', smart, stupid, honorable, whatever--that's just details.”
― Matthew Woodring Stover

“169. We whip them. Starve them. Chain them. Break their spirits. Break their minds. Still they love us. Still they offer up their lives without hesitation. Because when a horse loves you, it’s fucking absolute. And all they ask is that you love them back. Most of them never get even that.”
― Matthew Stover, Caine's Law

“I read once, somewhere, that the way you know you've grown up is when your future death becomes a stone in your shoe: when you feel it with every step.”
― Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle

“Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet... and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some... some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“Doubt begets understanding, and understanding begets compassion. Verily, it is conviction that kills.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought

“Love is lust made meaningful. Hope is hunger made human.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet

“There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet