Babylon Quotes

“At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight... For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky.”

“The sun that shines today is the sun that shone when thy father was born, andwill still be shining when thy last grandchild shall pass into the darkness.”

“I am not a wishing well with legs. (Paraphrasing Babylon 5's Londo Mollari, repeately, when asked to perform hacking functions for strangers.)”

“I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.”

“To live on as we have is to leave behind joy, and love, and companionship, because we know it to be transitory, of the moment. We know it will turn to ash. Only those whose lives are brief can imagine that love is eternal. You should embrace that remarkable illusion. It may be the greatest gift your race has ever received.”

“Not so many moons ago, he had been able to run to the summit of the temple without losing a single breath; however, now he felt like an old camel that laboured under a load of corn. Years pass so quickly, and the dreams of youth are lost forever.”

“Welcome to Irkalla, the Land of the Dead,” the woman said. “I am Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld.”

“New York: A third-rate Babylon.”

“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept Remembering thee.”