Claire North Quotes & Sayings

What is the purpose of history? It seeds only hate. All the history books should be burnt, so that we are no longer the peoples of our lands, but merely peoples... — Claire North

Single-minded dedication to just one thing, without rest, respite or distraction, is only conducive to migraines, not productivity. — Claire North

He who is silent is seen to consent. — Claire North

I know now that there is something dead inside me though I cannot remember exactly when it died. — Claire North

For a second, my hand touched yours, but that second is gone, and cannot be seen, heard or felt ever again. This second is gone, too, the moment in which I spoke by your side. It is dead. Let it die. — Claire North

Time, it transpires, is not so good at telling after all. — Claire North

This thing you carry inside you, I don't know what it is. I don't know where you got it. But Harry, the past is the past. You are alive today. That is all that matters. You must remember, because it is who you are, but as it is who you are, you must never, ever regret. To regret your past is to regret your soul. — Claire North

I have no time for boiled sausages, or boiled vegetables of any nature really, and cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would still insist on serving dishes whose whole cooking process consisted of exposure to water, to freely invited guests. — Claire North

What if thought is not free? What if memory is a prison, society a lie? Sometimes I look around and all I hear is screaming, screaming, screaming - what if you are the enlightened one? — Claire North

Blackmail is surprisingly difficult to pull off. — Claire North

Dr August, there is no greater isolation a man may experience than to be lonely in a crowd. He may nod, and smile, and say the right thing, but even by this pretence his soul is pushed further away from the kinship of men. — Claire North

Knowledge is not a substitute for ingenuity, merely an accelerant. — Claire North

We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets. It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks straight through me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am. That makes my life tricky. It also makes me dangerous... — Claire North

Nothing is ever quite enough. No matter who you are, there's always something more to be had, which could be yours if only you were someone else. — Claire North

Tell me, in a world where wealth is power, and power is the only freedom, what would desperate men not do to be heard?" "Civil — Claire North

And in that second, we, who have so long stood and watched, feel a shudder as her gaze sweeps the room, and know that she sees us too. She sees us, impossible though it is, and she knows. She knows who we are, and what we desire, and in that moment when we fear that she will destroy us all, instead it seems to us that she smiles. — Claire North

Perhaps, I suggested, the fate of the universe could briefly take second place to the thorny issue of graduating with honours?
He blew loudly between his lips, a liquid sound of contempt. "That," he exclaimed, "is precisely what's wrong with academics. — Claire North

So each generation set out to find more of its kind, and within just a few cycles of birth and death, the Club had spread not only through space, but also time, propagating itself forwards into the twentieth century and back into the Middle Ages, the death of each member spreading the word of what it was to the very extremes of the times in which they lived. — Claire North

Are you God, Dr August? Are you the only living creature that matters? Do you think, because you remember it, that your pain is bigger and more important? Do you think, because you experience it, that your life is the only life that gets counted? — Claire North

Consequences are only for the ones who stay behind. — Claire North

But I have seen many men for whom death truly is the end walk towards their demise for reasons no greater than that it was what they were told to do. On the beaches of Normandy, where the bodies floated in the water beside the falling ramps of the landing craft, I saw men run into machine-gun fire who would say, "Hell, I never thought it would come to this, but now I'm here, what's a guy to do?" With no going back, and no going forward, they went to their deaths with no better plan immediately to hand, having gambled that their choices would not narrow so far, and having been found to be wrong. — Claire North

It is perhaps the simplicity of his affection, the patience of his understanding and loyalty that makes him too easy to love, for his love is taken for granted by many, who give back nothing in return. — Claire North

I am frightened now. I am frightened that when he fades from my memory, a piece of me will die too. The feelings, the things I have learned, the ideas I have had today, so many ideas, so many feelings, they will die with my memory. I fear that loss. But more, a terror that I must share with my future self. I fear what this means for me. If you forget the joy of this day, then what joy you give to others will also be forgotten, and your life has no consequence, no meaning, no worth. I am a shadow, blasted away by the sun, a meaningless occlusion of light that fades with the day. — Claire North

Complexity should be your excuse for inaction. — Claire North

My first life, for all it lacked any real direction, had about it a kind of happiness, if ignorance is innocence, and loneliness is a separation of care. — Claire North

Always so very courteous. Lose courtesy, and you lose control; lose control and you lose yourself. — Claire North

We are no more and no less than minds, and it is human for the mind to be imperfect and to forget. — Claire North

In the end, he turned the radio on, and fell asleep to the sounds of either country or Western - he could never work out which was which. — Claire North

Time is not wisdom; wisdom is not intellect. I am still capable of being overwhelmed; he overwhelmed me. May — Claire North

You know why the experts don't have an easy answer? Because a fucking expert's the guy who knows how complicated the fucking questions are. — Claire North

But there is another question, more important, which is what is the first game that I was ever played in. That game began, I think, long before I ever competed for the higher league, and though I have not yet seen its shape, its battle is still ongoing. — Claire North

What is the point of you?
The world is ending.
Now it's up to you. — Claire North

Everyone loves a Canadian. — Claire North

I was six years old. I was seven hundred and fifty. I was being hunted. — Claire North

What is the point of me?
Either to change a world-many, many worlds, each touched by the choices I make in my life, for every deed a consequence, and in every love and every sorrow truth-or nothing at all. — Claire North

In 1789 the French rebelled and found an emperor. The Americans found their freedom from the British and enslaved the Africans. The Arab Spring bloomed and the military and the jihadists seized power. The internet gave us all the power of speech, and what did we discover? That victory goes to he who shouts the loudest, and that reason does not sell. — Claire North

I have waited for this day, and grief faded with time.
Or did it? Perhaps grief never leaves us but is merely drowned out by a flood of life overwhelming it. Perhaps the wound that bled once is bleeding still, and I did not notice it until now. — Claire North

Levity and sincerity are not antonyms. We take pleasure in playing chess, but that does not mean we make wasteful moves. You — Claire North

The trick with a truly successful intimidation is not to rely on volume or obscenity, but to cultivate that quiet certainty which informs any listener that your people will do the shouting for you, should the moment come. — Claire North

Words, rolling on. Sometimes the Harbinger of Death hears these words, words of house prices and commutes and the price of pasta and the new washing machine and the difficulty of finding a place to dry your wet clothes, and they make him indescribably sad.

Tonight, for some reason, as he listens to a story of a life still being built, and speaks of the ending of all things, he is not afraid, and this world, which seemed to be only ashes, begins again to give him an extraordinary joy. — Claire North

Insecurity is often the mother of aggression. — Claire North

Sophia: Go with it?
Harry: Don't fight against inevitability. Life is until it is not, so why get fussed? Don't hurt anyone, try not to give your dinner guests food poisoning, be clean in word and deed-what else is there? Just be a decent person in a decent world.
Sophia: Everyone's a decent person in their own eyes. — Claire North

Until you have not been free, you cannot understand what freedom means. — Claire North

God, but he lied beautifully; it was a masterclass. If I hadn't been concentrating so hard on my own deceit, I would have stood up and applauded. — Claire North

Life is lived through things which are not true. We pretend ourselves foolish in order to show our wisdom. We find things funny, which are sad. We smile at those who we would destroy, make alliances with those we do not respect, admire ourselves for our intellect and always look for the ultimate prize. We would be great, every one of us, and to achieve greatness do not bother to look at those we have destroyed in our path. A game is all of this and more, and nobler, for those who play at last transcend themselves, and see both the consequences of their choices, and the board as a whole. I do not think there is a nobler calling than the game, and I would have you a part of it.) — Claire North

She smiled and understood my meaning without it needing to be said. She leaned in close and murmured in my ear, 'The world is ending, as it always must. But the end of the world is getting faster. — Claire North

Marcus Aurelius, AD 121-180, author of Meditations. Quoth said emperor: It is not death a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. And also: You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength. — Claire North

Wow, that is so deep.'
He meant it, of course.
'You're really real,' he added breathily. 'Say something else.'
I decided he wasn't worth punching, and walked away. — Claire North

My ma was all of them at some time, and what she learned is that the best way to talk to God is by yourself. — Claire North

There is no loss, if you cannot remember what you have lost. — Claire North

We all die. We don't have to live our lives fearing it. — Claire North

If Pietrok-111 was a one-horse town, Pietrok-112 was the glue factory where that horse went to die. — Claire North

As a young man, I used to sport a rather ragged beard [ ... ]; it doesn't suit and in its untended state I can often come to look like a set of sensory organs lost in a raspberry bush. — Claire North

When we die it is as if the world resets, and only memory remains as evidence of the deeds we have done, no more and no less. — Claire North

Perfect people always have a solution to a problem, you see. But what do you do when words fail? Truth: sometimes a murderer cannot be found. Truth: sometimes your children are taken and you are left behind. Truth: poverty is a prison. Truth: disease and age come to us all. These are so terrifying, we program them out of the human brain. — Claire North

Reason is dead." Death shrugged. "Was — Claire North

That's a really nice thought and I'm grateful for it, but there comes a point when one realizes that gratification of the flesh is only so fulfilling. It's fantastic while it lasts, but comes with so many questions of emotional baggage and doubt that frankly I begin to question whether the grief involved outweighs the satisfaction gained. — Claire North

The rituals you make, the devotions you perform, they are what binds you to yourself. If you do not have them, if you have not found them within you, you are nothing, and the desert is all. I'm — Claire North

Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you're not helping people, just servicing the machine. — Claire North

They are ...
in their own, unspectacular way, to which no ballads are written or songs sung, in a domestic, daily, life-being-lived way,
... happy — Claire North

True fear is the fear of doubt; it is the mind that will not sleep, the open space at your back where the murderer stands with the axe. It is the gasp of a shadow passed whose cause you cannot see, the laughter of a stranger whose laugh, you know, laughs at you. — Claire North

It is said that there are three stages of life for those of us who live our lives in circles. These are rejection, exploration, and acceptance. — Claire North

When you have seen the whole world, the old words said, there is always Greenland left. — Claire North

Too many voices all at once on the internet, screaming, just all the time screaming, sometimes it's hard to be heard. Sometimes I think that the world is full of screaming. — Claire North

Is there innocence in ignorance? And if there is, do we tolerate other for their innocence's sake? — Claire North

All men want to be someone else. It's what makes them do greater things with their lives. With the lives they can live. — Claire North

You should learn to live a little, rough it out-I'm telling you, there's no greater high. — Claire North

Death flies because it is the modern way of things but doesn't particularly enjoy it, except for occasionally, when he rides up front with the pilot. — Claire North

It's just money," he replied. "It's just paper."
"It's time," I said, sharper than I'd meant. "It's the means to purchase time. It's the cost of a new bed in a hospital, a solar panel on a roof; it's a year's salary for a tailor in Dhaka, it's the price of a fishing boat, the cost of an education, it's not money. It's what it could have been. — Claire North

I just want to be myself,' she murmured.

'But is that good enough?' Leena mused, 'Or is it just selfish? — Claire North

How the fuck do I know that my better is anything more than the great big fat lie we tell ourselves to justify the slow fat nothing of our days. — Claire North

To regret your soul is to regret your past. — Claire North

I like Russian trains. Not for comfort, of which there is none, nor speed, of which there is barely any to be spoken about, particularly when you relate it to the size of the country that must be crossed. Not even, particularly, for the view, which is inevitably repetitive, as Mother Nature decrees that her works of wonder can only occur so frequently across such a vast and cultivated space. I like Russian trains, or at least those I travelled on in the early spring of 1956, so many centuries after I gunned Lisle down in cold blood; I like the trains for the sense of unity that all these hardships create in its passengers. I suspect the experience is relative. — Claire North

There was no moment of life, no waking from a darkness to find myself cured in that place. Rather there was slow shuffling towards comprehension, a few hours of recollection follow by a sleep, followed by a waking which stayed awake a little longer. — Claire North

The press, the media, the internet - they'll make the noise, make the screaming, the screaming all the time, and the truth and my voice will be lost. The blaming and the noise, human things, they'll make it about human things, not the truth. How can anyone live with it? How can anyone live with so much screaming in their lives, all the time? — Claire North

There is no loneliness more lonely than to be alone in a crowd. No awkwardness more unsettling than the inside joke you do not comprehend. — Claire North

The most it ever seems we know how to do with time, is to waste it. — Claire North

Series of cysts on his kidneys and liver which induced the septicaemia — Claire North

Speaking Mandarin with a Russian accent is extremely difficult. Of all the languages I have learned, Mandarin took me the longest, and having to replicate the suitable tones while simultaneously presenting myself as a rather bumbling Soviet scholar was an exercise that caused me considerable distress. In — Claire North

I do not think a pilgrimage is a proper pilgrimage if you are also using it as an excuse to visit your favourite aunt, or buy silk cheaply to re-sell," she murmured sombrely. "That's just business dressed up in orange robes. — Claire North

Ours is the fellowship of strangers who know a secret that we cannot express. — Claire North

Your face is your fortune! Don't spend it all at once! — Claire North

The coin turns; where it falls, nobody knows.
The coin turns, empires rise and empires fall, men live and men die, babies scream and dead men sigh; the world changes but people are always and are never the same. — Claire North

You must choose the life you live at the time you live it. — Claire North

I hate LA. Endless straight lines from nowhere particular to nothing much especially. Even — Claire North

She was crying, silently, holding my arm, crying. I let her cry a while, held her close, felt her snot and tears on my shoulder, wanted to cry myself, why is that, when I hear a child cry on the train it makes me sad, see a stranger weep and feel tears come to my eyes, a weakness, perhaps, a place where emotion hasn't become accustomed to the extremities of feeling. — Claire North

It was a reminder of the old truth that for tyranny to flourish all it required was the complicity of good men. — Claire North

Forgive me," I wrote at the bottom. "I did not think I would break. — Claire North

only ice against which they can whisper, and who has any joy in scheming against winter herself? All — Claire North

Death, as has been established, holds little fear - it is but the flesh. The mind is the source of what we are, and it was the mind that they were determined to destroy. — Claire North

Luck is sometimes merciful. The Game never is. — Claire North

The roads weren't much to speak of, and the car's suspension had been welded in by a stonemason resentful of his change in career. — Claire North

The secret to being unafraid of the darkness is to challenge the darkness to fear you, to raise your eyes sharp to those few souls who stagger by, daring them to believe that you are not, in fact, more frightening than they are. — Claire North

After a night of drinking, she would be a pale, starling-sized creature, but now, in this place, she is moonlight in heels. — Claire North

When you are alone, even the quiet is full of monsters — Claire North

They say that the mind cannot remember pain; I say it barely matters, for even if the physical sensation is lost, our recollection of the terror that surrounds it is perfect. — Claire North

For progress, we have eaten our souls up, and nothing matters anymore. — Claire North

People always find difficult truths harder than easy lies. — Claire North

He had a Kalashnikov, the universal weapon of all budget warriors, — Claire North

When I am optimistic, I choose to believe that every life I lead, every choice I make, has consequence. That I am not one Harry August but many, a mind flicking from parallel life to parallel life, and that when I die, the world carries on without me, altered by my deeds, marked by my presence. — Claire North