Patrick W.
banner
patrickw711.bsky.social
Patrick W.
@patrickw711.bsky.social
Retired attorney
But the deathless gods oppose the human desire to live forever.

Emily Wilson (translator)
The Iliad
Introduction

#booksky #books
November 8, 2025 at 11:40 PM
What they want is money. It makes everything dissolve. If they think they can make money out of your work, nothing will stop them.

Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field
Ch. 35

#booksky #books
November 8, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Take note of that, learn generosity.
I, old in winters, have made this speech
for your sake alone.

Anonymous
Beowulf
Tr. by Tom Shippey

#booksky #books
November 7, 2025 at 4:57 AM
Babe liked Sue. Vassos like Sue. Sue liked Babe. Vassos didn’t like that.

Dashiell Hammett
Fly Paper
in The Big Knockover

#booksky #books
November 6, 2025 at 2:42 AM
“You have changed the nature of things,” the Queen said.

“Not changed it,” Malcolm replied, “but seen it differently.”

Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field
Ch. 21

#booksky #books
November 5, 2025 at 3:46 AM
KASSANDRA : There is no escape.
 
CHORUS : No, you still have time.
 
KASSANDRA : The day is come. Flight would be pointless.
 
CHORUS : Brave girl.
 
KASSANDRA : People never say that to a lucky person do they?

Aiskhylos
Agamemnon
Tr. by Anne Carson in An Oresteia

#booksky #books
November 4, 2025 at 2:13 AM
He that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead.

J. R. R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion
Ch. 7

#booksky #books
November 3, 2025 at 4:16 AM
…[V]alor in combat is not the equivalent of competence in war.

Barbara W. Tuchman
A Distant Mirror
Epilogue

#booksky #books
November 2, 2025 at 2:34 AM
“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

#booksky #books
November 1, 2025 at 2:24 AM
It is enough for the great poets. For the storytellers and the artists of every kind. They take things as they are, things in the world, and play with them and change them about and make something new.

Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field
Ch. 19

#booksky #books
October 31, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Things will always go as they must.

Anonymous
Beowulf
Tr. by Tom Shippey

#booksky #books
October 30, 2025 at 2:33 AM
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done.”

Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
Ch. VII

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-conan-doyle/a-study-in-scarlet

#booksky #books
October 29, 2025 at 12:17 AM
You can prove that there are things you can’t prove.

Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field
Ch. 14

#booksky #books
October 28, 2025 at 12:31 AM
No doubt we are in a bad situation.
But if you give me comfort when I get hopeless I’ll do the same for you.

Euripides
Orestes
Tr. by Anne Carson in An Oresteia

#booksky #books
October 27, 2025 at 4:00 AM
“I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds.”

L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Ch. XII

#booksky #books
October 26, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-conan-doyle/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes

#booksky #books
October 25, 2025 at 1:53 AM
This is what I know: without imagination you never see the truth about anything. Without imagination you think you see more truth, but in fact you see less.

Philip Pullman
The Book of Dust: The Rose Field
Ch. 3

#booksky #books
October 24, 2025 at 2:27 AM
“Is he a good man?” inquired the girl anxiously.

“He is a good wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him.”

L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Ch. II

#booksky #books
October 23, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Can’t bring back time. Like holding water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you?

James Joyce
Ulysses
Ep. 8

#booksky #books
October 22, 2025 at 2:04 AM
It is hard to flee, try it who will,
for every one of the children of men,
every soul alive on earth
must go to the place appointed for it,
where the body after the banquet
will sleep in its grave.

Anonymous
Beowulf
Tr. by Tom Shippey

#booksky #books
October 21, 2025 at 1:48 AM
“…I would advise you to confine your assurances to the boundaries of your knowledge.”

Rex Stout
Not Quite Dead Enough
Ch. 4

#booksky #books
October 20, 2025 at 3:30 AM
“But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?”

“I understand how you feel,” said the little girl, who was truly sorry for him. ”

L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Ch. 3

#booksky
October 19, 2025 at 4:01 AM
“I have come for advice.”
“That is easily got.”
“And help.”
“That is not always so easy.”

Arthur Conan Doyle
The Five Orange Pips
in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

#booksky #books
October 18, 2025 at 4:19 AM
One unholy deed breeds another unholy deed.
A righteous house has righteous children.

Aiskhylos
Agamemnon
Tr. by Anne Carson in An Oresteia

#booksky #books
October 17, 2025 at 2:10 AM
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
Ch. III

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/arthur-conan-doyle/a-study-in-scarlet

#booksky #books

(Edited 9:34 PM via @skeetsapp.com)
October 16, 2025 at 4:35 AM