Farnham Calkins > Recent Status Updates

"Ama kendi adıma özgürlüğün peşinde değildim, ne o zaman ne de bugün. Yeri gelmişken, insanlar özgürlük adına birbirlerini suistimal ediyorlar. Özgürlük var olan duyguların en yücelerinden biri olduğu için doğurduğu yanılsama da en yüce yanılsamalardan biri oluyor"

"Coppers were always outnumbered. So, being a copper only worked when people let it work. If they were refocused and realized that you were just another standard idiot with a pennyworth of metal for a badge, you could end up a smear on the pavement."

"People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of revolution were faced with the age-old problem: It wasn't that you had the wrong government, you had the wrong people."

"A new Patrician will need new friends, farsighted people who want to be a part of a wonderful future. One that's good for business. That's how it goes. Meetings in rooms. A little diplomacy, a little give and take, a promise here, an understanding there. That's how real revolutions happen. All that stuff in the streets is just froth..."

"Her gün kendime artık çok geç olduğunu söylüyorum. Asla Gene Kelly veya Virginia Woolf olamayacağım. Önceden olabileceğime biraz inanırdım. Kendime bu hikayeyi gizlice anlatırdım. Bunun faydasız olduğunu biliyorum. Egomu törpülemem lazım. Olmadığım bir şeyin beni ele geçirmesine izin vermemeliyim. Sınırlarımı oluşturan duvarlara tosluyorum ama yine de devam ediyorum. Sanki bir bisikletteyim gibi, durursam düşüyorum"

"Bazen başkalarına gerçekten bu kadar az mı ihtiyaç duyduğumu, yoksa aralarında kendim olma gücünden yoksun olduğum için mi ayrı durduğumu kendime soruyorum. (...) Sadece beni rahat bıraksınlar istiyorum. Yalnız olmak, kimseye bir şey ispatlamak zorunda olmamak istiyorum"

"'Certainly not! I sometimes put it in the safe at weekends, but I'm... sure I didn't do that last night.' Vimes noted the subtle uncertainty. He was doing a bad thing, he knew. Tilden was nearly seventy. At a time like that, a man learned to treat his memory as only a rough guide to events. 'I find, sir, that when a busy man has a lot on his plate he can do things subsequently slip his mind,' he said, 'I know I do'"

"He, though, started in the wrong place. He didn't look around and watch and learn, and then say, 'This is how people are, how do we deal with it?' No, he sat and thought: 'This is how the people ought to be, how do we change them?' And that was a good enough thought for a priest, but not for a copper."

"Probably he ought to feel proud of his younger self, but he didn't (...) If you are going to be me, it's going to take a lot of work. Thirty damn years of being hammered on the anvil of life, you poor bastard. You've got it all to come."

"The garden didn't get much proper light. Gardens like this never did. You got second-hand light once the richer folk in the taller buildings had finished with it."

"'I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people,' said the man. 'You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.'"

"-All the roaring and flaming you see, you don't need it.
+ Foolish ape! How else can I make them do my bidding?
- They'll do it of their own free will (for being afraid). And in time, they'll come to believe that it was their own idea. It'll be a tradition. Take it from me. In fact, before too long, if someone comes along and tells them that a dragon king is a bad idea, they'll kill him themselves. I know people."

"'Hwhat', she said, 'is the meaning of this?' If she had ever been given to introspection, she'd have admitted that it wasn't a very original line. But it was handy. It did the job.The reason that cliches become cliches is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication."

"You could study your whole life and not know. How long must a fish study to understand human motivation? We are like dumb animals to the Powers of the Transcend. Think of all different things people do to animals - ingenious, sadistic, charitable, genocidal - each has a million elaborations in the Transcend. The Zones are a natural protection; without them, human-equivalent intelligence would probably not exist."

"In one lifetime, Pham Nuwen had accomplished virtually everything that was possible for a being in the Slowness. All her life Ravna had pitied the civilizations trapped down there. They could never know the glory; they might never know the truth. Yet by luck and skill and sheer strength of will, this fellow had leaped barrier after barrier."

"If I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice."

"When you are big enough, and powerful enough, and pay the right people, you can do what you like. Greed and corruption are calling the shots.

As they say in Borneo: 'It's illegal - but it's official.'"

"There is a rumor going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

"Dull, dull, dull. This stuff is all science fiction that has come true - Arthur C. Clarke is a keen and persuasive salesman for the benefits of satellite technology - and it has come true quietly and it has become humdrum.

We hold in our hands a power that emperors dreamed of, and we say, 'It was only £69.95 because Dixons had a sale on.'

""Bunu yapabilir misin? Hayatı sona ermek üzereydi! Can veremediğini söylemiştin bana!"
VEREMEM ZATEN. AMA BELKİ, SEN VEREBİLİRSİN.
"Ne demek istiyorsun?"
YAŞAM PAYLAŞILABİLİR."

"Hüzünlü bir müzikti ama hüznünü bir savaş bayrağı gibi sallıyordu. Evrenin, elinden geleni ardına koymadığını ama insanın, yaşamayı yine de başardığını söylüyordu.'

"ÇOĞU İNSAN BİR HAYLİ APTALDIR VE HAYATLARINI BOŞA GEÇİRİR. BUNU HİÇ GÖRMEDİN Mİ? KÜÇÜK, SIRADAN DÜNYALARININ GERÇEK OLDUĞUNU SANAN KÖR YARATIKLARLA DOLU BİR YUVAYA BENZETMEDİN Mİ? IŞIKLI PENCERELERİ GÖRÜYORSUN VE O PENCERELERİN ARDINDA PEK ÇOK İLGİNÇ HİKAYE OLDUĞUNU DÜŞÜNMEK İSTİYORSUN FAKAT ASLINDA ORADA YALNIZCA SIKICI, ÇOK SIKICI RUHLAR OLDUĞUNU BİLİYORSUN. HEPSİ YALNIZCA BESİN TÜKETİCİLERİNDEN İBARET..."

"Evdeki insanlar 26 saate uzanan günler yaşıyorlardı. Normalde insanlar 24 saatlik günlük ritimden daha uzun bir düzen tuttururlar ve gün doğumu geldiğinde küçük saatler gibi yeniden ayarlanırlar. İnsanlar zamana tahammül ederler. Fakat gün, kişisel bir seçimdir."

"Koçbaşı Dağları'nda yaşayan köyün sakinleri bir insanın ancak dünyada yarattığı dalgalar söndüğü zaman nihai olarak öldüğüne inanır; kurduğu saat durduğu, yaptığı şarap mayalandığı veya ektiği ekin hasat edildiği zaman. Birinin ömrü, derler, asıl varoluşlarının yalnızca çekirdeğidir."

"Dediğim gibi, düğünümüzden önceydi. Sonra atlarından biri tek başına geri döndü ve sonra köyün erkekleri gidip çığ düşen yeri buldu... Ben ne düşündüm, biliyor musun? Bu saçmalık diye düşündüm, bu aptalca. Ah, daha sonra başka şeyler de düşündüm tabii ama düşündüğüm ilk şey, dünyanın bir tür kitap gibi davranmaması gerektiği oldu. Korkunç bir düşünce, değil mi?"

"It's better to ask Santa Claus for a pair of slippers for Christmas rather than peace on earth. You might actually get it. Big, jolly fat men can't deliver world peace. That's something we have to work at ourselves."

"Disk'teki en kısa ömürlü yaratıklar, en fazla 24 saat yaşayan mayıs sinekleriydi. Ve şimdi en yaşlı iki tanesi, yumurtalarından daha akşam üstü çıkmış genç sineklere tarih anlatıyordu.
'Ah ah' dedi biri 'Nerede o eski güneş...'
'Haklısın' dedi diğeri. 'Eski saatlerde güneş de güneşti hani. Sapsarı olurdu. Böyle koca kızıl değil.'
'Hem daha yüksekte olurdu'
'İnek bile vardı.'
'Doğru! Bu saatlerde inek bulamazsın'"

İçten bir özlemle ekledi: "Can sıkıntısı denen şeyi duydum, ama maalesef hiç deneme şansım olmadı." - Mort

"Under those stiff Victorian clothes she would be as tough as nails. I took that as a given, because my creativity always appears to fail me if I try to write a soppy girl. I just can't. You could poke me with sticks, and it would have no effect."

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."