91 Quotes by Lauren Beukes

There are patterns because we try to find them. A desperate attempt at order because we can’t face the terror that it might all be random.

There are only so many plots in the world. It’s how they unfold that makes them interesting.

Fear festers in the imagination. It’s not fear’s fault. That’s just the way it’s made. Nightmares breed. Allies become enemies. Subversives are everywhere. Paranoia justifies any persecution, and privacy is a luxury when the Reds have the bomb.

In our patakis, our folk myths, we believe that we come to the world with a destiny we picked for ourselves in Arun. Obatala creates the human body, but you have to get your head from the potter who molds them out of clay in his warehouse. On a good day he makes beautiful heads, but sometimes he gets drunk and makes a bad head. It’s a divine defect. There’s no way to tell from the outside, but once you’ve chosen your head, you have to live your destiny.

The biggest fairy tale is that justice works because it doesn’t.

I really wanted to believe that there were these magic celestial bodies that would direct my life, tell me what to do, and it turns out it’s not stars, it’s some bits of screwy DNA. I’m just meat with faulty programming.

You can’t play nice by society’s rules? Then you don’t get to play at all. No phone. No service. No life. Tendeka.

Grown-up relationships are complicated. We got what we needed from each other. Passion. A safety net. Some kind of solace. It’s lonely out there. But it ran its course. It was lovely while it lasted. But everything is finite. Life. Love. All this. Sadness too. Although that’s harder to let go of than happiness. – Rachel Mazrachi.

Anyone can find they’ve been standing on the trapdoor when they thought they were the spotlight attraction.