12 Quotes by Emma Newman

It's the consistency that's important. It helps to form a pattern and that pattern is more important than the detail when it comes to changing people's minds.

Am I just a mosaic of myself, held in the shape of a whole person?

I can remember my grandmother talking about the scientists before the collapse of democracy...All gone now. Doing something for the good of humankind, for the sheer ideologicial ambition of extending our footprint beyond Earth, simply isn't profitable enough.

No one wants to hear anything like the truth during these landmark times. It has to be one emotion, a positive one - unless it's a quiet, heartfelt confession of fear or nervousness that can utterly disarm listeners and give them the opportunity to be reassuring - just to keep the social wheels turning in the way that makes everyone feel secure.

That was the second major lie I told that week. It gets easier, in some ways; now I lie without expending any effort. But I think each one has its own weight. One alone may barely register, like a grain of sand in the palm of one's hand. But soon enough there's more than can be held and they start to slip through our grasp if we are not careful.

He knew just what to say to make me feel safe, not only from the external but also my internal world. That scared me more than anything, sometimes; the noise of my thoughts, the sense that even the space inside myself wasn’t safe.

That was the second major lie I told that week. It gets easier, in some ways; now I lie without expending any effort. But I think each one has its own weight. One alone may barely register, like a grain of sand in the palm of one’s hand. But soon enough there’s more than can be held and they start to slip through our grasp if we are not careful.

No one wants to hear anything like the truth during these landmark times. It has to be one emotion, a positive one – unless it’s a quiet, heartfelt confession of fear or nervousness that can utterly disarm listeners and give them the opportunity to be reassuring – just to keep the social wheels turning in the way that makes everyone feel secure.

I focus on my breath and stop trying to work out why I feel so panicky. All that matters is getting a steady inward-and-outward rhythm.