Best 27 quotes of Benedict Jacka on MyQuotes

As I walked, I started making a list of everyone in the mage world whom I’d opposed, fought with, or otherwise irritated. After I ran out of fingers to count on I decided to limit the number to people I’d pissed off relatively recently.

(...) Being a Dark mage comes with a certain automatic intimidation factor - you don't get far in Dark society without being ruthless, and even the ones who haven't reached their current position over a pile of bodies are not to be messed with - but still, most of them practice a certain minimum level of subtlety. Fear is useful, but sometimes you just want to blend in.

- (...) But I don't think I'd make a very good Light mage. - Why? Because I used to be a Dark mage and half the Council hate me for it. Because the Council left me to die when I needed them the most and I hate them for it. Because I think the Council are treacherous weasels. And because I don't think I've got any right to call myself a servant of the light, even if most of the Council don't deserve that title either . . .

But there was no fear on Caldera's face or in the way she moved, and the Dark mages stood still, letting her pass. Predators are drawn to weakness, and Caldera wasn't showing any,

(...) Dark society, on the other hand, isn't really a society at all. Among Dark mages, security and relationships are all handled on an individual level: if you have a problem then by default it's up to you to do something about it. While there's a loose code of conduct, the only way rules are imposed is if the one in charge is powerful enough to enforce his will on a collection of Dark mages (rare) or if the Dark mages in question are willing so submit to him (even rarer). Secrecy and paranoia are also so much bigger deals in the Dark world - Light mages aren't exactly trusting, but Dark mages take it to the extreme. I wasn't the only mage here wearing a mask, and it was a safe bet that I wasn't the only one pretending to be someone I wasn't either. The really paranoid mages wouldn't physically be here at all: they'd be miles away, utilizing projections or simulacra (...)

Different moves make different sounds - the steady tread of someone walking, the scrape of shifting feet, the patter of someone in a hurry - and with practice you can learn to filter them, picking out the ones that don't fit in. It's nothing to do with magic, just simple awareness, a primal skill that anyone can learn but which most people in the modern age have forgotten. But anyone who lives as a predator or a prey learns it fast.

- Do you know what your problem is? - You're going to lecture me on my problems? Really? - Lack of empathy - I thought. You can read people's thoughts, but you don't recognize them as belonging to real people. You don't pay attention to their motivations or what they care about; you just use brute force to make them what you want.

For years I'd been trying to forget..., locking it up and burying it deep in my memory. The journey... had shattered that, bringing it all back - but now that I'd faced it, I found to my surprise that the fear had been worse than the reality.

Has anybody ever told you you’re a remarkably cynical person?” “I like to think of it as learning from experience.

(...) I'd thought of intelligence as an academic thing, not something you used in the real world. Richard showed me differently. Seeing patterns and predicting them, analyzing people's behavior, looking multiple steps ahead . . . always thinking, always planing, never standing still (...) but the biggest thing I learnt from Richard was that the mind can be a more powerful weapon than any spell (...)

- (...) I felt clumsy; weak. Every instinct I had was screaming against going with (him), but I couldn't find the words - You don't know what it was like. What (he) can do. This is what he does. He finds what you want the most, offers it on a plate. And the price is you. You say yes, he owns you (...) - You'll be alive. You just won't be the same (...) You're a good person. I believe that, even if you don't. But if you go with him . . . you won't be. Not by the end.

If there’s one thing all diviners share, it’s curiosity. We really can’t help it; it’s just part of who we are. If you dug out a tunnel somewhere in the wilderness a thousand miles from anywhere and hung a sign on it saying, ‘Warning, this leads to the Temple of Horrendous Doom. Do not enter, ever. No, not even then’, you’d get back from lunch to find a diviner already inside and two more about to go in. Come to think about it, that might explain why there are so few of us.

I’ll use my divination and look into the future. Hey, you know what, I’m seeing the future right now. If I stand here and wait, then in three minutes a train’s going to come. And after that, another train’s going to come. Here, I’ll let you guess what’s going to happen afterwards. I’ll give you a hint—there’s a train.

(...) I'm not a hero. I'm just a survivor, that's all. If I ever seemed like I was trying to set myself up as more than that, that was my own mistake.

I spend a lot of time running from things. It works, up to a point. Most of the time when you're in danger, the one who's threatening you isn't after you, not personally. They just want something you have, or you're in the way for some reason. Get away from them and stay away long enough, and things will change. But sometimes what the other person wants isn't a thing, or a piece of information, or some other short-term goal. Sometimes what they want is you. And when that happens, then all running does is put things off. It'll delay them, but if they want you badly enough then eventually they'll catch up again. Sooner or later you'll have to face them - the most you can do is choose the time and the place.

- I think . . . - I hesitated, trying to figure out how to say it - I think you've been afraid of that side of yourself that you've gone too far the other way. You've been pushing yourself to be good and peaceful all the time, and you don't have any kind of safety valve. I know I might not be the best role model but . . . speaking from experience, accepting your dark side works a lot better than trying anything to shut it away.

It used to be that young and inexperienced mages were the favorite prey of non-human magical predators. Nowadays that particular spot on the food chain has been taken over by human magical predators, and being the same species doesn't make them any less cruel. Some mages like taking slaves; Dark mages in particular. The more able and powerful the slave, the more prestige they bring, and young and attractive ones are favored (...) Some mages target others for Harvesting, turning their victims into fuel sources. And then there are other reasons, running the gamut from the brutal and logical to the totally incomprehensible. In the end, all the reasons come down to the same thing: because they want to, and because they can.

I've been waiting for this a long time."-Martin "Let me guess that you're wishing for your IQ to break double figures?"- Alex V.

(...) I was still pissed off, and I knew why (...) It was so black and white, their world. Either you were a sheep or you were a wolf. You didn't use violence or you were a thug. Nothing in between. Well, screw them both (...)

Lying well takes practice. An amateur can pull off a lie as long as no one's looking for it, but soon as they get cross-questioned they go to pieces. A professional, on the other hand, can manage interrogation just fine - they submerge in the lie so well that they actually believe it themselves. There are subtle signs which you can look for, but a good liar never make it obvious.

Sagash told me once that in the end you don't feel anything at all (...) You can still see what you're doing to someone's body; you just . . . don't care. I've wondered how many more it'll take. Before I become like him.

(...) (She) spent a lot of her time as a kid having to take care of everyone else (...) She's always been good at noticing things - she'd see when people needed help, and when her magic developed it was the same thing but stronger (...) But here's the thing - (she) doesn't actually want to do that all the time (...) she likes helping people (...) but she doesn't want to be nurturing and mothering every single person she meets for the rest of her life (...) Doesn't matter how many you treat, there's always another one. And you know what really gets annoying? Half the time they're not even all that grateful. The better you do your job, the more you fix people's problems, the more they take it for granted (...) Do you know what it feels like to always take care of everyone and get treated like crap? It gets to you (...)

(...) So she shut me away (...) In here. Where she can forget about me and all the ugly little secrets that don't belong in her perfect world. But she can't get rid of me - I'm part of her and she still needs me. When things get really dangerous she'll bring me out, long enough to keep her alive. She just won't admit it.

When my magic started developing, it only made things worse. Universal magic is the hardest of all the families for humans to use - it's too abstract, to alien (...) It didn't send me crazy, not quite, but I wasn't exactly stable either and the fact that I had no idea what was happening to me didn't help. Maybe if I'd had someone to talk to I might have tried to explain it, but there wasn't anyone left by then, not really (...) So I learned to control my power. I learned to focus my mind; block out the futures I didn't want to see; direct my perception instead of taking in everything. I learned to select futures; search out along those not-quite-visible strands of possibility; shut them off when it was too much and I needed the time to recover. And I did it alone, because I had to. And it worked. It didn't make me any happier. My crude ability to see the future didn't make me any friends - the opposite, if anything, I had knowledge, but there wasn't anything I could do with it. I was left just as isolated, hating the people who'd ostracized me.

(...) Within minutes of seeing him I was falling back into my old habits, apprentice to master. That actually scared me more than seeing him did.

You’re lucky you didn’t know him back in his tech phase. There was this time in our second year when we were living in the same house. Kitchen table kept wobbling so Landis shoved this metal saucer under one of the legs. Wasn’t until two weeks later we found out it was a land mine.

- (...) You remember what you asked me last year? - I said eventually - About what kind of person I want to be? (...) I never used to care about anyone else (...) Not really. I mean, I'd do something nice now and again, but I always came first, you know? (...) I'm not sure who changed that you or Luna, but . . . I think it was Luna. You helped me when I needed it the most, but I always saw you as above me, I guess. I could never really imagine you needing me for anything, not until that (...) But Luna did need me. So I started thinking more and more about my friends. I kind of divided the world up into them, and everyone else. If you were inside that group, you mattered.