Matt Hughes Quotes

The insane had a tendency to cloak others in the strange garments they found hanging in the backs of their own mental wardrobes. So, for that matter, did the rest of us, but the consequences of error were usually less drastic.

I reflected that the genial glow that surrounds the doer of a good deed loses some of its warmth and brightness when the recipient meets every action with the pinched face of suspicion.

"I will inform the world of your preference," said Gaskarth, "but I doubt it will lead to any significant improvements in your lot."

"He began to dream the dreams that always seduce a tyrant: powers beyond powers, worlds at his feet, whole realms bowing to his whims."
"And the dreams occluded his faculties," I said. "It was ever thus, we may be thankful, else tyrants would never fall."

My intent was to spot not only Massim Shar’s cut-out but the other member of his criminal coterie who would be there to watch our transaction. There might even be a watcher to watch the watcher, trust being a commodity in short supply among the lawless.”

Talking was only one of the uses to which Chalivire liked to put her large and loose-lipped mouth; another was filling it with the products of The Braid’s renowned kitchens.

Insanity was not unknown among the wealthy. Indeed, some forms of madness had sometimes been cultivated as fashionable accessories.

Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

Well, as I say, authority is always lawfully relinquished, but sometimes the legitimacy is acquired after the relinquishment.
“You mean retroactively?”
I mean that cause and effect are not always arranged in an ideal sequence.
“In other words,” Filidor translated, “not only do victors write the histories, but usurpers also rewrite the rule book to justify the illicit seizure of office.”
Perhaps not the most felicitous manner of putting it, but essentially correct.
“I am surprised the people put up with such shenanigans. They should rise up.”
Unwittingly, I am sure, you put your finger on the flaw in your own reasoning.
“How so?”
You said, “They should rise up,” not “We should rise up.” As long as it is a matter to be solved by others, it will not be.

"Wealth tends to generate wealth," he began.
I gave a qualified assent. "If it does not instead give birth to folly."

When we have done more traveling together, you will come to see that occasionally we must be other than forthright with local authorities. Many of them lack imagination and react poorly to creativity and unexpected innovation.

Things are as they were meant to be.
“But it was arranged so by you and me.”
Then we are instruments of fate.
“Knowing instruments,” said Filidor.
How does that make a difference?

The commerciants of Olkney were renowned for their egalitarian spirit, judging rich and poor alike solely by the weight of their purses.

A lifelong habit of being right also had the effect of diminishing one’s social appeal, especially among those who prefer to keep the bubble of their various illusions a safe distance from a needle-sharp and probing intelligence.

The combined effect of so many ambulatory sticks and balls, each of whom wore an expression of complete self-satisfaction, added strength to my longstanding belief that the profession of couturier required only a good knowledge of fabric and a malicious sense of humor.