LITERARY REFERENCES
"she was forcibly reminded of the old conundrum that starts, "All Cretans are liars." SoH, CH-USP c3 p47 (the Epimenides paradox: 1) Epimenides is a Cretan. 2) Epimenides states, "All
Cretans are liars.")
"A little learning is a dangerous thing" SoH-USP c8 p148, CH-USP c8 p120 (Alexander Pope, An
Essay on Criticism)
"He smiled a little as he corrected himself, like the famous tiger of the limerick when he returned
from the ride with the lady inside" SoH-USP c8 p159, CH-USP c8 p129 (Anonymous, "There
was a young lady of Niger, Who smiled as she rode on a tiger. They returned from the ride With
the lady inside And the smile on the face of the tiger." Wonder if he smiled with his eyes?)
"Ah love, let us be true to one another" SoH, CH-USP c13 p188 (Matthew Arnold, "Dover
Beach")
"A separate peace, as they say" SoH-USP c14 p263 (Ernest Hemingway, "In Our Time" 1924.
"You and me, we've made a separate peace.")
"Negri's fisher of men" B-USP c2 p31, CH-USP c2 p284 ("Follow me, and I will make you
fishers of men" Matthew 4:19)
"A dog returns to its vomit, doesn't it?" B-USP c8 p138, CH-USP c8 p376 ("As a dog returneth
to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly" Proverbs 26:11; "The dog is turned to his own vomit
again" II Peter 2:22)
"The two shall be made one flesh" B, CH-USP c14 p474 ("For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" Matthew 19:5,
also Mark 10:8, Genesis 2:24, elsewhere)
"Clouds of witnesses" B-USP c19 p353, CH-USP c19 p562 ("Wherefore seeing we also are
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses..." Hebrews 12:1)
"Grant me this boon." "With all my heart; and much it joys me too, to see you are become so
penitent." WA-USP c3 p38 (Shakespeare, Richard III, I ii, "the old play")
"Your plowshares and pruning hooks, then" WA-USP c7 p87 ("They shall beat their swords into
plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks" Isaiah 2:4)
"Trojan horse" WA-USP c11 p152 (The Iliad)
"Dog in the manger" WA-USP c18 p254 (Aesop)
"All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means" C-USP c1 p1 (Chou En Lai, Saturday
Evening Post 27 Mar 1954)
"The intelligence, the reserve, the pilgrim soul..." C-USP c2 p28 (W.B. Yeats, "But one man
loved the pilgrim soul in you", "When You Are Old")
"I am Fortune's fool" C-USP c5 p89 (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III i)
"Do cats eat rats? Do rats eat cats?" L-USP(BoI) p151 (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland,
Chapter I, except bats instead of rats)
"The devil can quote scripture" BoI-USP p223 (Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice I iii, "The devil
can cite Scripture for his purpose")
"Those who have ears, let them hear" BoI-USP p239 (Matthew 11:15, "He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear")
Suegar's "scripture" quoted in full BoI-USP p242 (John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, text in context reads:
"Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the two shining men again, who there waited for them; wherefore, being come out of the river, they saluted them saying, We are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those that shall be heirs of salvation. Thus they went along towards the gate.
Now you must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill, but the pilgrims went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; also they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river, for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They, therefore, went up here with much agility and speed, though the foundation upon which the city was framed was higher than the clouds. They, therefore, went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, because they safely got over the river, and had such glorious companions to attend them."
There is some confusion here as to the roles that Suegar and Miles are playing; Suegar says "the scripture says there has to be two" meaning the two ministering spirits who lead the pilgrims by the arms, but he also refers to those two as being naked. In this case the "they" who "had left their mortal garments behind" are the pilgrims, Christian and Hopeful. The confusion is not surprising considering the portion of the "scripture" Suegar had to work with.
The text describing the meeting of Christian and Hopeful is as follows: "Now I saw in my dream,
that Christian went not forth alone, for there was one whose name was Hopeful (being made so
by the beholding of Christian and Faithful in their words and behaviour, in their sufferings at the
Fair), who joined himself unto him, and, entering into a brotherly covenant, told him that he
would be his companion. Thus, one died to bear testimony to the truth [Faithful], and another
rises out of his ashes, to be a companion with Christian in his pilgrimage.")
"blessed also are they who do not see, and yet believe" BoI-USP p243 (John 20:29)
"Miles sent up a prayer of thanks in his heart to whatever gods might be" BoI-USP p247 (Possible
nod to either A.C. Swinburne, "The Garden of Proserpine": "We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be" or William Ernest Henley, "Echoes": "Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul." Or
not.)
"Let he who is without sin cast the first lure" BoI-USP p247 (John 8:7, "He that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her")
"Biology is Destiny" BoI-USP p250 (Sigmund Freud)
"And where the devil does not exist, it may become expedient to invent him" BoI-USP p268
(Voltaire, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him")
"The sheep look up, but are not fed" BoI-USP p300 (Milton, Lycidas, "The hungry sheep look
up, and are not fed")
"I will break the doors of hell, and bring up the dead" BoI-USP p303 (Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet
VI, column iii. One translation has it: "I will break in the doors of hell and smash the bolts; there
will be confusion of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I shall bring up the
dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living." Miles thinks
"there was something not quite right about the half-remembered quote." "Half-remembered"
would explain the missing text; the "not quite right" could refer to the inappropriateness of the
threat of vengeful Ishtar in this context; Miles may have been thinking more about Jesus and the
Harrowing of Hell. After all, he has already referred to himself once as Jesus (WA-USP c16 p228).)
"A rose by any other name" BiA-USP c1 p22 (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II ii, "That which
we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet")
"Stun them all, God will recognize his own" BiA-USP c3 p50; "Slay them all, ImpSec Chief
Simon Illyan had muttered. The Devil will recognize his own" M-USP c1 p9 (At the siege of
Béziers, 1209, when the military commander asked the pope's representative (Papal legate
Arnaud-Amalric) how he might distinguish heretics from true believers, the reply was: "Kill them
all. God will recognize His own.")
"The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace" BiA-USP c4 p71
(Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")
"Know thyself" BiA-USP c5 p91 (Plutarch, Morals)
"Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York" BiA-USP c9
p176-7 (Shakespeare, Richard III, I i; Miles recites the whole of Richard III, under the influence
of fast-penta, a testament to his powers of memory and an interesting choice to have memorized,
considering the hunchback and all. Notice that his intimate knowledge of the play is prefigured as
early as WA, see above.)
"Jockey of Norfolk, be not bold, for Dickon thy master is bought and sold" BiA-USP c13 p250
(Shakespeare, Richard III, V iii)
"Quinn, Quinn, beautiful Quinn, Quinn of the evening, beautiful Quinn" BiA-USP c9 p175 (More
likely a quote from the Mock Turtle's "beautiful soup" song from Lewis Carroll's Alice in
Wonderland than from its less memorable inspiration "Star of the Evening" by James M. Sayles)
"He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day" BiA-USP c9 p182 (Similar words
written by many authors but closest to: "For he who fights and runs away May live to fight
another day; But he who is in battle slain Can never rise and fight again," Oliver Goldsmith, The
Art of Poetry on a New Plan, obviously written long before the days of cryopreservation)
"I am poured out like water" MD-USP c17 p323 ("I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast" Psalms 22:14)
"if I should die before I wake" MD-USP c19 p357 ("Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord
my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."Bartlett's
Quotations notes that the first record of this prayer is found in the Enchiridion Leonis, 1160 AD)
"Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her" MD-USP c23 p420 (Mother
Goose nursery rhyme)
"And in the play, Caliban does not marry Prospero's daughter" MD-USP c33 p554 (Shakespeare,
The Tempest)
"There's no place like home. [1] I didn't say there was nothing better. I just said there was nothing
like it.[2]" M-USP c2 p15 (1: John Howard Payne, "Home Sweet Home," "Be it ever so humble,
there's no place like home," but I suspect if Miles is quoting here, he's quoting "The Wizard of
Oz." 2: The White King in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Chapter VII)
"Most men are of naught more use in their lives but as machines for turning food into shit"
M-USP c8 p116 (Miles attributes to Leonardo da Vinci, but I haven't tracked it down yet. Similar
to Isak Dinesen in Seven Gothic Tales, "What is man, when you come to think upon him, but a
minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of Shiraz into urine?")
"Where does the forty kilo Imperial Auditor sit? Anywhere he wants to" M-USP c18 p258 (The
old joke goes something like "Where does the five-hundred pound gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants
to" with variations.)
"Death, where is thy sting? Hook, where is thy fish?" M-USP c20 p297 ("O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" I Corinthians 15:55)
"Miles attempted to compose his soul in patience" M-USP c26 p390 ("Possess your soul with
patience" John Dryden, "The Hind and the Panther," with echoes of Luke 21:19, "In your patience
possess ye your souls")
"Chance favors the prepared mind, as somebody or other said" M-USP c26 p405 (Louis Pasteur)
"they may also serve who only stand and wait" M-USP c29 p457 ("They also serve who only
stand and wait", John Milton, On His Blindness)
"Time is out of joint" K-USP c13 p220 (Shakespeare, Hamlet I v)
"Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?" K-USP c14 p229
(Shakespeare, Richard III, I ii)
"the old Barrayaran joke about the Vor lord who jumped on his horse and rode off in all
directions" K-USP c16 p268 ("He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and
rode madly off in all directions, " Stephen Leacock, Gertrude the Governess, 1911)
"A hit, a very palpable hit" K-USP c16 p262 (Shakespeare, HamletV ii)
"I have touched the elephant, and it is very like a... what were the six answers?--rope, tree, wall,
snake, spear, fan..." M-USP c21 p311 (John Godfrey Saxe, "The Blind Men and the Elephant":
"It was six men of Indostan, To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though
all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind." The story is probably
older than this, however.)
"You have been to Beta Colony, I perceive" ACC-USH c9 p164 ("You have been in Afghanistan,
I perceive." Sherlock Holmes on meeting Dr. John Watson, A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle)
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all" ACC-USH c10 p195 (Shakespeare, HamletIII i)
"the incident with the drains in the nighttime" ACC-USH c12 p224 ("the curious incident of the
dog in the night-time," Sherlock Holmes again, "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan
Doyle)
Miles explains Hamlet to Nikki ACC-USH c13 p259
"ninth circle of hell" ACC-USH c-epil. p402 (Dante's Inferno)