Puppeteer Quotes

“She dreamed that somebody replaced her nerves with puppet strings. The unseen puppeteer resisted every move she made, and Nina was still ensnared when sunlight tickled her eyes open. For weeks, her actions lagged, leaden, as if cement thickened in her marrow, her skull, and her heart-bearing chest.Later, Nina learned the puppeteer’s name: Depression.”

“Because we suddenly see that making everything all right would NOT make everything all right. We would not be human beings. We would then be no more than puppets obeying the strings of the master puppeteer. We agree sadly that it is a good thing that we are not God; we do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all.”

“Here was the puppeteer who was pulling strings all over the Empire. Didn’t he know that the Fates were the only ones who could tweak the threads of destiny?”

“My soul, I’ve found, has puppet strings to make me droop or give me wings.And music is the puppeteerthat turns my ear to hear.”

“She wasn't a cruel Bird. But her heart ached so badly for these sad, broken birds that, just as the Puppeteer had planned, she had begun to hate them. She hated them for making her feel so wretched, when she should be happiest. That happens sometimes.”

“Cold comradeship do stars provide.They light the closer, inner sideOf night's vast weight, which, chill and clear,Pulls on us like some puppeteer.Its unseen threads to heads and heartsAttached, it acts us through our parts,From birth's first cry to bent old age,Upon our distant, tiny stage.”

“Praying to the Almighty, Javert?” called a voice, and Javert opened his eyes to see Rousseau and Leclerc smirking at him. Javert tipped his head and said to the others,"If I was, it would be awfully rude to interrupt my prayer, don’t you think? But, no, Leclerc. I find no solace in speaking with an imaginary puppeteer.”Rousseau, who was twenty-five and utterly dim of mind, frowned at Javert’s words. Javert rolled his eyes and sighed,"I don’t pray.”

“This is our recurring temptation—to live within our camp’s caves, taking turns both as the shadow-puppeteers and the audience. We chant our camp’s mantras repeatedly so they continue reverberating in our skulls. When we stay entrenched within our belief-camps, we create the illusion of secure reality by reinforcing each other’s presuppositions and paradigms. We choose specific watering holes of information and evidence, and we influence each other in interpreting that data in accordance with the conclusions we desire. Our camps reinforce our existing cognitive biases, making cheating all the more common and easy.”

“It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.”