Five hundred years Quotes

“Hazed by pleasure, Nix still had to know. This could be his last chance. “Nikolai,” he said thickly. “Tell me about Nikolai.”Roark’s hand drifted down over Nix’s pale torso. He eyed Nix wryly. “You have his persistence,” he allowed wryly. His eyes flickered on Nix’s hot face. Everything hidden behind them even as he spoke. “Very well. He was a genius. He was a … thug. He was night and day. He could be kindness itself to a stranger, and yet the next day would bathe in that stranger’s blood. And if you tear the shirt from Henley’s back, you will doubtless find Nikolai’s name carved there. Nikolai became mine, and I his, for five hundred years.” Roark’s striking face was smooth, expressionless. Enigmatic. “They were five hundred years of heaven. Five hundred years of hell. I can tell you no more. Not right now. Is that enough?”

“A fellowship of secret scholars spent five hundred years on this task. Now we're penciling it in for a Friday morning.”

“Can you imagine doing ministry the last five hundred years and getting away with ‘Sorry, I don’t do books’? Can you imagine doing ministry in the next five years and getting away with ‘Sorry, I don’t do Facebook’?”

“More than that, in the five hundred years of European OCCUPATION, Native cultures have already driven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient.”

“I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes.”

“Goddamn it, do it yourself. You’re five hundred years old and you can’t use a telephone? Read the directions. What are you, an immortal idiot?”

“Five hundred years ago the notoriously savvy Henry VIII discovered an elegant way to solve both his theological problems and his personal liquidity crisis —he dissolved the monasteries and nicked all their land.”

“A thousand years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they knew the Earth was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you knew we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.”

“In five hundred years' time, to the historian writing the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, this little episode would not exist. There will be plenty of other causes. You and me and poor Jones will not even figure in a footnote. It will be all economics, politics, battles.”