Matthew Stover

"Cant trust a fascist--truth is always your first sacrifice to the welfare of the state"

"When the gods would punish us, they answer our prayers."

"Fairy tales--simple stories for simple minds, a breath of air to cool brows overheated by the complexities of real life."

"I read once, somewhere, that the way you know youve grown up is when your future death becomes a stone in your shoe: when you feel it with every step."

"A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization."

"The problem with happy endings," Tanelkoth said, "is that nothing is ever truly over."

"Anyone who is of a thoughtful, philisophical cast of mind will occasionaly be struck by the appearance of certain organizing principles of history. The forms these principles seem to take inevitably depends upon ones specific obsession. For a mornachist, history is a struggle of classes of economic civil war. An agriculturalist sees the dynamic of populations, land, and availability of food; a philosopher might speak of the will to power or the will to sythesis; a theologian of the will of God."

"Dont care about gods. Gods are irrelevant. What counts is people. What counts is having respect for each other."

"I respect what is repectable," Tanelkoth replied. "To ask for respect where none has been earned is childish maundering.And what is repectable, in the end, save service? Even your idol Jefferson is, in the end, measured by how well he served the species. The prize of individualism--its goal--is self-actualization, which is only another name for vanity. We do not admire men for achieving self-actualization; we admire self-actualization when its end result is a boon to humanity."

"Life is mere chance only when one allows it to be."

"He did understand. Finally, fatally, he did. He had thought he was the master of history, that his fractal world-tree had grown according to his will. He had allowed himself to be deceived."

"Its customary, at times like this, to say a few words. A man shouldnt die with no understanding of why hes been murdered. I do not pride myself on my eloquence, and so I will keep this simple."