Paul Hoffman > Quotes

“To be sociable is a risky thing—even fatal—because it means being in contact with people, most of whom are dull, perverse and ignorant and are really with you only because they cannot bear their own company. Most people bore themselves and greet you not as a true friend but as a distraction—like a dancing dog or some half-wit actor
with a fund of amusing stories.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Where have you come from boy?'
He looked at her again.
'From hell, to take you away in the night and eat you.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“How can I know for sure if it's my son speaking and not you?"
"You never can, my lord. Just as no man can ever be sure that he alone is a thinking and feeling creature and everyone else a machine that only pretends to feel and think.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“What are those humps on her chest?”
― Paul Hoffman, The Left Hand of God

“People treat the present moment as if it is just a stopping point on the way to some great goal that will happen in the future, and then they are surprised that the long day closes; they look back on their life and see that the things they let go by so unregarded, the small pleasures they dismissed so easily were in fact the true significance of their lives- all the time these things were the great and wonderful successes and purpose of their existence.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Beating of His Wings

“It's one of the greatest mistakes of cultivated people to take it as given that because they have sophisticated minds they also have sophisticated emotions. But what kind of soul feels sophisticated hatred or sophisticated grief, for, say, a murdered child? Is the broken heart of the educated and refined person different from that of the savage? Why not say that the enlightened and knowledgeable feel the pain of childbirth, or the kidney stone, in a different way to unpolished commoner or chav? Intelligence has many shades, but rage is the same color everywhere. Humiliation tastes the same to everyone.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Beating of His Wings

“The search for knowledge and the discovery of a great weapon are virtually one and the same. War is the father of everything.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“The man who believes that honesty is the best policy is not an honest man.”
― Paul Hoffman

“Just as the purpose of the liver is to act as a sump for the poisons of the body, the soul has its organs for containing and isolating the toxic discharge of human suffering.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Beating of His Wings

“As it happens I don't think it was God- the woman who saved me, she doesn't look like she's had much to do with angels, Perhaps the Devil was behind me all the time.”
― Paul Hoffman

“Treat others as you would expect to be treated by them,”
― Paul Hoffman, The Beating of His Wings

“error. This is no easy thing to say concerning famous men deserving praise. But to err is human and God has given us reason to struggle to make the best of our nature. Woman”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“If you fight cruelty with kindness, it's the kindness that goes away, not the cruelty.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Beating of His Wings