Roundabout Quotes

“No more roundabout discussions of what makes a good man. Be one!”

“Bad business does not revolve around missing crossroads. It revolves around roundabouts.”

“I could never understand, when I watch romantic comedies, the notion that for some reason, unattractive or heavy people don't fall in love. If they do, it's in some odd, kooky, roundabout way - and it's not. It's exactly the same.”

“And just in general, I'm better. Better than I've been since Bram died, and in some ways better than I was even before that. No, Lulu didn't break my hear. But I'm beginning to wonder if in some roundabout way, she fixed it.”

“Who are you?" the woman said at last."Lyra Silver—""No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do you know things like this?" Wearily Lyra sighed; she had forgotten how roundabout Scholars could be. It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.”

“I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it.”

“Don’t you think it’s actually harder for you . . . to adapt, I mean? Because you’ve done all that stuff?’‘Are you asking me if I wish I'd never done it?’‘I’m just wondering if it would have been easier for you. If you’d led a smaller life. To live like this, I mean.’‘I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, if you’re stuck in one of these, all you have are the places n your memory that you can go to.’ He smiled. It was tight, as if it cost him. ‘So if you’re asking me would I rather be reminiscing about the view of the caste from the minimart, or that lovely row of shops down off the roundabout, then, no. My life was just fine, thanks.”

“The goal that you hope you will one day arrive at after a long and roundabout journey you are able to possess right now, if only you do not deny it to yourself. That is, if you can let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence and redirect the present according to justice and the sacred. To the sacred, so that you welcome what has been given to you, for Nature has brought this to you, and you to it; and to justice, in order that you may speak the truth freely and without distortion, and that you may act in accordance with what is lawful and right. Do not allow yourself to be hindered by the harmful actions, judgments, or the words of another, or by the sensations of the flesh which has formed itself around you. Let the body take care of those. But if, when you have come to the end, having let go of all other things, you honor only your guiding part and the divinity that is within you, and you do not fear ceasing to live so much as you fear never having begun to live in accordance with Nature--then you will be a man who is worth of the Cosmos that created you; and you will cease to live like a stranger in your own land, that is, surprised at unexpected everyday occurrences and wholly distracted by this and that.”