In our memories, there is a graveyard where we bury our dead. They all lie there together, the loved ones and the ones we hated, friends and foes and kin, with no distinction among them. We have to mourn every one of them, because our memories have made them as much a part of us as our bones or our skin. If we don't, we've no right to remember anything at all.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of memory and loss, emphasizing how all our relationships, positive or negative, shape our identity.
In this quote, Steven Brust explores the complex nature of our memories and how they contribute to our sense of self. He suggests that we carry not just the memories of those we loved, but also those we disliked, blurring the lines between friends and foes. Mourning all these relationships is portrayed as essential, as each one profoundly impacts us, making them inseparable from our being. Ignoring this mourning means denying a part of our lived experiences and the memories that form our identity.
In practice
In a eulogy, to reflect on the complexity of relationships in a person's life.
Because here’s the thing: No matter how much one tells stories of magical beasts or impossible worlds, in the end, it is always the world of here and now one is writing about. The better one understands that world, the more powerful the stories will be.
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
I am the passenger, I stay under glass. I look through my window so bright, I see the stars come out tonight. I see the bright and hollow sky, over the city's ripped backsides and everything looks good tonight.
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...' You dare not.' And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.
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