Words to Remember

[cardasseam]

When you were a small boy, I was worried about you. Always getting in trouble. Secretive… so full of deceit. Little did I know you would turn such distasteful characteristics into virtues.

Mila

Bashir: The next day the boy does it again and the next two and on the fourth day a wolf really comes. The boy cries out to the top of his lungs, but the villagers ignore him and the boy and his flock are gobbled up.

Garak: That’s a little graphic for children, wouldn’t you say?

Bashir: But the point is; if you lie all the time nobody’s going to believe you, even when you’re telling the truth.

Garak: Are you sure that’s the point, doctor?

Bashir: Of course. What else could it be?

Garak: You should never tell the same lie twice.

Bashir & Garak

It’s a lot more fun asking questions than answering them.

Garak

Enemies make dangerous friends.

Cardassian proverb, related by Garak

Quark: I want you to try something for me. Take a sip of this.
Garak: What is it?
Quark: A human drink. It's called root beer.
Garak: I don't know...
Quark: C'mon...aren't you just a little bit curious?
Garak: *drinks*.......It's vile!
Quark: I know.... It's so bubbly and cloying and happy.
Garak: Just like The Federation.
Quark: But you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you'll begin to like it.
Garak: It's insidious.
Quark: Just like The Federation.

Garak & Quark

Non-DS9 Quotes

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering.

Sylvia Plath

Perhaps in the margins of darkness, I could create a son who is not missing; who lives beyond even my own imagination and invention; whose lusts, stupidities, and strengths carry him farther than even he or I can anticipate; who sees the world for what it is; and consequently bears the burden of everyone’s tomorrow with unprecedented wisdom and honor because he is one of the very few who has successfully interrogated his own nature. His shields are instantly available though seldom used. And those who value him shall prosper while those who would destroy him shall perish. He will fulfill a promise I made years ago but failed to keep.

Mark Z. Danielewski

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.

And then the nightmares will begin.

Mark Z. Danielewski

Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?

Clarice Lispector

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.

Czeslaw Milosz

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.

Czeslaw Milosz