Quotes from book
Jack Faust

Jack Faust

Michael Swanwick

Jack Faust is a science fiction novel by American writer Michael Swanwick. It was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award in 1997, and for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1998.

““Fool. There is no why. The very word is a semantic fallacy. Ask me how and I can lay out for you cause and effect, one thing leading to another, the alcohol acting on a grieving man’s mind, the door inadequately guarded, the people within isolated from the common lot of humanity by the dreadful secret of their ancestry.”
He rattled his glass.
Nathan refilled it.
Faust drank. “But to ask why,” he continued, “implies that things happen for a purpose, and they do not. There is no purpose, no direction, no guidance to events. Nothing means anything. The world is a howling desert of meaningless, and reason is useless before it. There is only blind event.”
He stared off into the bleak landscapes of the future while Nathan refilled his glass and refilled his glass and refilled his glass.
He saw so clearly now, without delusion or hope. It was a crystal night of the soul.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (pp. 327-328)

““Let me explain to you,” the Horned One said, “the nature of history.”
“What?”
“The first thing you need to know is that history happens almost exclusively in the dark… Here is your second lesson: History is that which cannot be prevented… Here is your third and final lesson: History is simply life with all the bits any sane person might care to experience left out.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 14, “Dreadnought” (pp. 246-256; extracts from a long narrative passage)

“Everything was dying, yet death did not suffice. Life had hidden resources. In a thousand ways it was concentrating strength, hoarding its energies in seed, chrysalis, and nectar, preparing for the warrior sweep out of exile that would undo the defeat of winter. Spring was implicit.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (p. 330)

“It pained him to think how naive he had once been.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (p. 328)

“He stood unmoving, wondering at his own abrupt and incomprehensible inability to act. He did not fear damnation. Nor did he give a fig for the common opinion of Mankind. There was nothing to stop him but fear alone—fear that his reasoning was wrong.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 17)

““I have no need to expose myself to your flummery,” Mette said with dignity. “I believe in order that I may know. I do not know in order to believe.”
“I marvel at your spite. Of what possible benefit can this willful ignorance be to you?””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (pp. 59-60)

“There was so much going on, and so little he cared to know about!”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 11, “Apes” (p. 184)

“Margarete saw, and disapproved, and understood. It was perfectly natural that Youth, being given a new and revolutionary truth, should embrace it too eagerly, should defend it too loudly, should proclaim it in the extremest terms and without regard for the sensibilities of others. Natural, too, that Age, vested as it was in things as they had always been, should reject the truth as unsettling and dangerous. In the ace of such strong emotions, the only sane thing to do therefore was to embrace the truth circumspectly, to hide one’s new allegiance from one’s elders.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 10, “The Sermon” (pp. 165-166)

“Information is information, Faust. Knowledge is knowledge. I make no distinction between the high and the low.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 6, “Practical Designs” (p. 80)

“Still, it was no easy thing to flirt in German.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 13, “Tabloids” (p. 225)

““How… how can”—savagely, he slashed an arm down before him in absolute negation of all he saw—“such be? How could God allow it?”
“God? You fool—there is no God!”
The words struck Faust like a great bronze clapper, shattering the crusted certainties of a lifetime, reverberating, setting up echoes that washed back and forth through his being in slowly lessening waves, leaving no atom unshaken, no belief untouched. There was no God. He knew this for the truth, recognized it as such on an almost physical level, for it summed up everything he had ever thought or reasoned. It resolved a thousand doubts. It left no question unanswered. There was no God! Everything was possible now. Nothing was forbidden.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 2, “Revelations” (pp. 30-31)

“So it was that the Catherines poured water and spooned gruel, while the Clares prayed for the intercession of the saints. The Catherines changed sheets. The Clares practiced mortification of the flesh. The Catherines employed antibiotics. The Clares made a public display of a kneecap of their patron saint.
It was soon widely know to which hospital one went to get well, and to which one went to die.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 9, “The Plague Kitchen” (p. 141)

“Our records must be scrupulous, whether they show what we want them to show or not.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 9, “The Plague Kitchen” (p. 148)

“He had for many years thought of Christ as a rival in greatness. Now he realized they were both brothers in misery. Their enemies were identical: the howling mob, the fearful, the inferior, the baying hounds of conventional morality.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (p. 320)

“This was human glory—a sad and exhaust-darkened memorial for good citizens to ignore and drunks to piss upon on their way home from the brothels. Here was the omega-point of all ambition.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 19, “Ashes” (p. 317)

“The hearsay of hearsay is not admissible as scholarship.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 11)

“Faust wallowed heavily over on his side, presenting a pitiable face to Wagner. “Never fall in love,” he said. “She will take lovers, and some of them will be more experienced and capable than you. I tell you this as a friend—there are dishes once tasted, a woman is loath to do without.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 16, “The Wild Hunt” (p. 275)

“They were not aware of the madness that lurked within their own minds.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 3)

““Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?”
“Because it’s true.”
Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.””

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 4, “Flight” (p. 55)

“The law,” Hoess suggested, “might not be entirely unhelpful here.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 13, “Tabloids” (p. 214)

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