The Thief of Time
Overview
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction
of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star
its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a
clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the
rest of it.
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is the paperwork.
[p. 6]
They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things
spun and rocks fell.
And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived
as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn't have a position in time and space, such as
imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of
trees a lot.
[p. 10]
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying "End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH," the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
An edge witch is one who makes her living on the edges, in that moment when boundary conditions apply - between life and death, light and dark, good and evil and, most dangerously of all, today and tomorrow.
[p. 12, footnote]
Here are people who know that there is no steel, only the idea of steel.
Footnote: But they still use forks, or, at least, the idea of forks. There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon, although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup.
[p. 28... the Matrix has you...]
'Things either exist or they don't,' said Jeremy. 'I am very clear
about
that. I have medicine.'
[p. 48, submitted by Christina Waldeck]
'Dojo! What is Rule One?'
Even the cowering challenger mumbled along to the chorus:
'Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!'
[p. 50]
If children were weapons, Jason would have banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork had even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism.
[p. 88, submitted by Sir Humpalot]
In the words of one of the founding Igors: 'We belong dead? Ecthcuthe me? Where doeth it thay "we"?'
[p. 136]
The Auditors avoided death by never going so far as to get a life
[p. 145]
'Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questiona and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?'
Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: 'A fish!'
And Clodpool went away, satisfied.
[p. 153]
Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthsiastic amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset. This was one of those sunrises. It was the kind of sunrise a man looks at and says, 'No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance Pink.'
Nevertheless, it was beautiful.
[p. 180]
I have seen galaxies die. I have watched atoms dance. But until I had the dark behind the eyes, I didn't know the death from the dance.
[p. 190]
A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same brand of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking along contains no calories.
Most of what you get taught is lies. It has to be. Sometimes if you get the truth all at once, you can’t understand it.