24 Quotes by Barry Hughart

El error puede indicar el camino de la verdad, mientras que una cabeza hueca sólo conduce a una cabeza más hueca o bien a una carrera política.

Blessed are the idiots, for they are happiest people on earth.

I have never been able to understand why perfectly sensible people waste time being wittily obscure instead of just saying what they want and going on about their business.

Don’t be ashamed of reliving your childhood, Ox, because all of us must do it now and then to maintain our sanity.

Fable has strong shoulders that carry far more truth than fact can.

Nothing on the face of this earth – and I do mean nothing – is half so dangerous as a children’s story that happens to be real, and you and I are wandering blindfolded through a myth devised by a maniac.

The emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them.

One of the previous possessors of the stone was Chuang Tzu. He had a disciple who spent seven years studying universal energy and then demonstrated his wisdom by walking across the surface of a river and back again, and Chuang Tzu broke into tears. ‘Oh, my boy!’ he sobbed. ‘My poor, poor, boy! You spent seven years of your life learning to do that, and all the while old Meng has been running a ferry not two miles from here, and he only charges two copper coins.

A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world, it isn’t ability that counts, but authority.