Courtney’s Reviews > Hannibal > Status Update

“We assign a moment to decision, to dignify the process as a timely result of rational and conscious thought. Bit decisions are made of kneaded feelings; they are more often a lump than a sum.”

“America, where every influence is felt more quickly, including the death of Jehovah and the incumbency of Mammon.”

“How do you behave when you know the conventional honors are dross? When you have come to believe with Marcus Aurelius that the opinion of future generations will be worth no more than the opinion of the current one? Is it possible to behave well then? Desirable to behave well then?…had to decide what his honor was worth, or if there is a wisdom longer than considerations of honor.”

“The monster sits in the black library, his kind painting colors in the dark and a medieval air running in his head.”

“His eyes reflect light redly, but they do not glow red in the dark, as some of his keepers have sworn they do. The darkness is complete.”

“The still air holds the smell of vellum and parchment and extinguished candlewicks.”

“One quality in a person doesn’t rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible.”

“Death and danger do not have to come with trappings. They can come to you in the sweet breath of your beloved. Or in a sunny afternoon in a fish market with ‘Macarena’ playing on a boom box.”

“With the question, she first felt his mind, prehensile and deep-sleeved, different from the vocabulary he used with her.”

“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named - the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”