Julia

“—You don’t like patriots?

—I like the concept. It sounds good. To love the place where you’re from, nothing’s wrong with that, right? It’s all good. But is it love, really? Or is it pride?

—I don’t understand.

—Well, you can love something that’s flawed. It’s harder to be proud of it. Can you love something you’re not proud of? Much easier if you can do both. That’s where it gets messy because you need a reason. You have to have something to be proud of. Is it quality of life, education? How would you know? It has to be something much simpler. You, and people just like you. You start believing you’re better than everyone else. Other people, well, their culture is messed up, they have the wrong values, they’re not as good, not as smart, or they’re just plain evil. You can hate them or pretend you’re a good person and just be condescending. Everyone else is just as proud as you are for the exact same reasons, but they’re wrong, and you’re right.

That’d be just fine—you can buy more tanks and go to war with the guy next door—but then you look around and you see those same people inside your country. More than that, they want the same rights, the same opportunities, as everyone else. Shit, they could be in charge! So you start taking things away from them, making sure they’ll stay where they belong, and let the real citizens make the decisions. You step on your own people, you keep them down, because you’re proud of your country, because you’re a patriot.”
― Sylvain Neuvel, Only Human

“You will not die of pain, but you will never get used to it. Pain is unique in that it does not show habituation or neural adaptation, like smell, or touch.”
― Sylvain Neuvel, Waking Gods

“Act out being alive, like a play. And after awhile, a long while, it will be true... You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“They’ll spend time and energy finding ways not to learn things just to feel comfortable with their beliefs...
They’re happy to buy into this nonsense because they’re on the right side of things, and they have someone to blame for everything that’s wrong with the world. How cozy that must be, never having to question anything?”
― Sylvain Neuvel, Only Human