Matthew Hughes (writer)

Matthew Hughes (born 1949) is a Canadian author who writes science fiction under the name Matthew Hughes, crime fiction as Matt Hughes and media tie-ins as Hugh Matthews.

Quotes

Filidor Vesh

Fools Errant (1994)

All page numbers are from the hardcover omnibus edition, Gullible's Travels, published by The Science Fiction Book Club, ISBN 0-7394-1940-4

• “In any case”—he gestured at the car—“this vehicle has achieved a state of permanent inanimation.”
  • Chapter 2 (p. 23)

• Coming whence you do, you doubtless assume that the mores and customs of your own land arise from the workings of simple human nature. But human nature is far from simple, and what appears natural in your own milieu may seem chillingly alien when transported into some foreign sphere.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 30)

• “Knowledge can be a hindrance to right action,” answered the little man. “There are those who hold that, if we but knew the full ramifications of even our least deeds, the ensuing concatenations of cause and effect would paralyze us with indecision.”
  • Chapter 4 (p. 52)

• Gathering himself together, he asked the dwarf, “Was all this in some way planned and predetermined?”
  Gaskarth turned upon the young man a thoughtful gaze. “There are those who say that all is planned, to the placement of the last mote and mite. There are others who say that nothing is purposed, and that the galaxies themselves swing where they will. And then there are some, like me, who prefer to walk on, saying as little as possible.”
  • Chapter 4 (p. 53)

• Into the Zeelotic ethos, we have injected the philosophical axiom—well known to the field of fashion—that the outmoded only remains so until it becomes unremembered, after which it may justly return as the avant-garde.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 70)

• “I am not one to deny the broadening effects of distant lands,” offered Nofreg, “yet I have often said that the chief benefit of travel is to allow the returned sojourner a renewed appreciation of his native milieu.”
  • Chapter 6 (p. 76)

• “I suspect that the benefits of travel are indeed overrated. It seems mostly hardship and needless frustration,” she said.
  • Chapter 8 (p. 106)

• “Your remarks demonstrate how proximity narrows perspective,” said Gaskarth. “Events in and of themselves are less pertinent than the effects and interpretations to which they give rise.”
  • Chapter 8 (p. 115)

• “This conversation would be more easily conducted,” said Filidor, “if I had any notion of what you are talking about.”
  • Chapter 9 (p. 124)

• Does not the acceptance of a spurious perfection end the search for true perfection?
  • Chapter 10 (p. 128)

• “We all use the world, and are used by it,” he said, after a moment. “Some of us are more aware than others of using and being used. It is our fortune to have fewer illusions.”
  • Chapter 10 (p. 136)

• “I will inform the world of your preference,” said Gaskarth, “but I doubt it will lead to any significant improvements in your lot.”
  • Chapter 10 (p. 136)

• “From within such a calcified culture, no change can be generated; the impetus for reform must arise from without. Hence, the external threat posed by Hunan Diath.”
  “Who does not exist,” said Filidor.
  “Who need not exist,” said Gaskarth, “so long as the idea can do its work.”
  • Chapter 11 (p. 148)

• “I disagree,” said Jenbo Lal.
  “Disagreeability is your forte,” said Gaskarth.
  • Chapter 13 (p. 166)

Fool Me Twice (2001)

All page numbers are from the hardcover omnibus edition, Gullible's Travels, published by The Science Fiction Book Club, ISBN 0-7394-1940-4

Italics as in the book

• The commerciants of Olkney were renowned for their egalitarian spirit, judging rich and poor alike solely by the weight of their purses.
  • Chapter 1 (p. 212)

• “We are all used, all users. With luck, the final tally approximates a balance in our favor. But I think you are one of those who calls the proverbial glass half empty, while I prefer to call it half full.”
  “No,” said Filidor, “in truth, I have never given these matters much thought. I am one who quaffs the glass empty and calls for it to be refilled.”
  • Chapter 4 (p. 276)

• Well, as I say, authority is always lawfully relinquished, but sometimes the legitimacy is acquired after the relinquishment.
  “You mean retroactively?”
  I mean that cause and effect are not always arranged in an ideal sequence.
  “In other words,” Filidor translated, “not only do victors write the histories, but usurpers also rewrite the rule book to justify the illicit seizure of office.”
  Perhaps not the most felicitous manner of putting it, but essentially correct.
  “I am surprised the people put up with such shenanigans. They should rise up.”
  Unwittingly, I am sure, you put your finger on the flaw in your own reasoning.
  “How so?”
  You said, “They should rise up,” not “We should rise up.” As long as it is a matter to be solved by others, it will not be.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 301)

• The direct approach is not always the wisest strategy, as those who have fallen off mountains can testify.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 302)

• Things are as they were meant to be.
  “But it was arranged so by you and me.”
  Then we are instruments of fate.
  “Knowing instruments,” said Filidor.
  How does that make a difference?
  • Chapter 5 (p. 308)

• Assigning blame is a fixation of an ineffective mind.
  • Chapter 5 (pp. 318-319)

• As ever, you vainly grasp at diaphanous vastness while the tangible turns to mist in your hands.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 322)

• “That is unfair,” said Filidor.
  Gavne shrugged. “Things are as they are. If you quest after justice, young women are the wrong continent to explore. They run more to clemency or spite.”
  • Chapter 6 (p. 347)

• Filidor marveled at the intransigence of adolescence, not remembering that he had possessed an abundance of the same quality not many years since.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 355)

• Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 368)

• She could be—he hoped would be—what he had always lacked: a center to the map of his life, that one, necessary fixed point from which he could navigate out into the world and by which he could always find his way back home again.
  • Chapter 8 (p. 386)

Henghis Hapthorn

Majestrum (2006)

All page numbers are from the hardcover first edition published by Night Shade Books, ISBN 1-59780-061-9

• Have you considered the possibility that our standards as to what is important may differ?
  • Chapter 1 (p. 3)

• Talking was only one of the uses to which Chalivire liked to put her large and loose-lipped mouth; another was filling it with the products of The Braid’s renowned kitchens.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 21)

• “What is your theory?” my assistant asked, but again I declined to answer. A mistaken theory that never went farther than its originator’s mind does not count as an error.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 48)

• Insanity was not unknown among the wealthy. Indeed, some forms of madness had sometimes been cultivated as fashionable accessories.
  • Chapter 6 (p. 60)

• Also, there was a remarkable display of objects that primitive humanity had allegedly thrust through various parts of their bodies—some of them extremely sensitive—for decorative effect. I shuddered slightly at the thought: self-mutilation, though everyone’s right, had always taken me aback.
  • Chapter 6 (p. 68)

• A lifelong habit of being right also had the effect of diminishing one’s social appeal, especially among those who prefer to keep the bubble of their various illusions a safe distance from a needle-sharp and probing intelligence.
  • Chapter 6 (p. 76)

• “I have a reputation for genius,” I said, though I lowered my voice. “It can withstand some eccentricities.”
  • Chapter 7 (p. 84)

• Life is a hopeless rear guard action against an overwhelming foe; still how can we not admire those who battle on regardless?
  • Chapter 7 (p. 93)

• My alter ego was awake and listening. “Magic,” he said.
  “To one whose only instrument is a drum, all melodies are much the same,” I answered inwardly.
  • Chapter 9 (p. 132)

• “Who was it who said that irony is the fundamental operating principle of the universe?”
  “I believe,” I said, “that it was Henghis Hapthorn.”
  • Chapter 10 (p. 143; note that the speaker in the second line is, in fact, Henghis Hapthorn)

• I cannot comment on your beliefs. What appears self-evident to one person may seem to another observer to be entirely the product of an idiosyncratic bent.
  • Chapter 11 (p. 151)

• “He began to dream the dreams that always seduce a tyrant: powers beyond powers, worlds at his feet, whole realms bowing to his whims.”
  “And the dreams occluded his faculties,” I said. “It was ever thus, we may be thankful, else tyrants would never fall.”
  • Chapter 12 (p. 165)

• When the Wheel turns, much that is impossible in the old phase becomes commonplace in the new.
  • Chapter 12 (p. 172)

• “Then how is it done?”
  “By magic, I suppose. How else?”
  “That is a foolish and flippant answer,” he said. “‘Oh, it’s magic,’ is not a handy solution to every mystery. I am not the child.”
  • Chapter 12 (p. 181)

• “Could Rievor be hiding himself behind some magical cloak?” I asked my other self.
  “No,” he said. “I believe he is exercising that most potent form of invisibility: the one called, ‘not being present at all.’”
  • Chapter 13 (pp. 188-189)

• “I have a plan.”
  “What kind of plan?”
  “A daring and bold one,” he said.
  “Is that wise?”
  “It has to be that kind of plan. It’s that kind of cosmos.”
  • Chapter 14 (p. 197)

The Spiral Labyrinth (2007)

All page numbers are from the hardcover first edition published by Night Shade Books, ISBN 978-1-59780-091-4

• “I do not wish to experience that again.”
  “Some people claim that the occasional exposure to fear enhances their enjoyment of more tranquil circumstances.”
  “Some people ought to be confined for their own good,” my assistant said, “and to prevent them from spreading dangerous inanities.”
  • Chapter 2 (p. 23)

• “Then you will have to look at an experienced integrator.”
  “You mean a used and discarded one.”
  “We could quibble over narrow distinctions and shades of meaning all day, only to greet the evening with nothing accomplished. Or we could press on and solve your problem.”
  • Chapter 3 (p. 28)

• “There are, occasionally, rarely, some…difficulties,” she admitted.
  “That is a word that may cover a great swath of territory,” I said, “from the low foothills of minor inconvenience to the insurmountable peaks of constant vexation.”
  • Chapter 3 (p. 29)

• I might have been lulled by her show of confidence, had I not commanded a fact or two about spaceships. “A Grand Itinerator compares to an Aberrator as does a mansion to a country cottage,” I said.
  “It is a matter of point of view,” she argued. “It depends on whether one concentrates on differences or congruencies. Being of a broad and generous spirit, I prefer the latter perspective. You may be the type who niggles.”
  • Chapter 3 (p. 29)

• Persons who disguise themselves when they go out into the world rarely do so for innocent purposes. At best, they mean to pull some merry prank; all too often, they intend a considerably deeper mischief.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 36)

• “Isn’t it obvious?” he answered.
  “No. It is so far from obvious that it has gone right through obscure, breezed past unfathomable and is now completely beyond the reach of my vocabulary.”
  • Chapter 5 (p. 54)

• “You’re worried, aren’t you?” he said.
  “Again, you have chosen a word not large enough to cover more than the barest fraction of the situation.”
  • Chapter 5 (p. 55)

• But in this age, logic was a flame that must be frequently starved of fuel.
  • Chapter 6 (p. 84)

• “You ask if anyone has ‘tested the concept.’ But why would anyone test reality? Reality is not for testing, but for living with.”
  • Chapter 6 (pp. 86-87)

• “We should be frank with each other,” Lavelan said.
  It had been my experience that most conversations that were launched on such a declaration represented an attempt by the initiator to gain far more information than he intended to give.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 97)

• “Often, when a stranger says, ‘Trust me,’ a wise man puts his hand on his purse and backs away.”
  • Chapter 7 (p. 99)

• “I detected some quavers in his voice that indicated stress. But I would not say that he lied.”
  “Though it was not the whole truth.”
  “It never is. The ‘whole truth’ starts with the beginning of the world and its telling takes an inordinately long time.”
  • Chapter 7 (pp. 100-101)

• I had no doubt that there was madness here. How could it be otherwise in a cosmos that was ordered solely by will? It did not mean that the insane would automatically rise to the apex of the social order; their efforts would be diffused by the randomness of the impulses that drove them. But those whose extraordinary powers of will propelled them to the heights of power and rank would always be vulnerable to going further than they should. And there would be none but their equally mad rivals to restrain them.
  • Chapter 7 (pp. 106-107)

Hespira (2009)

All page numbers are from the hardcover first edition published by Night Shade Books, ISBN 978-1-59780-101-0

• My intent was to spot not only Massim Shar’s cut-out but the other member of his criminal coterie who would be there to watch our transaction. There might even be a watcher to watch the watcher, trust being a commodity in short supply among the lawless.”
  • Chapter 1 (p. 8)

• The combined effect of so many ambulatory sticks and balls, each of whom wore an expression of complete self-satisfaction, added strength to my longstanding belief that the profession of couturier required only a good knowledge of fabric and a malicious sense of humor.
  • Chapter 1 (p. 9)

• “The likelihood seems farfetched.”
  “So have several of the situations in which we have found ourselves in the recent past,” I said.
  “But you are resolved to avoid those kinds of situations in the future.”
  I made a gesture ripe with fatalism. “I have come to understand that the universe accords my resolutions a good deal less consideration than I would prefer.”
  • Chapter 2 (p. 21)

• “Very well,” I said, “let us roll the pebble and get the avalanche on its way.”
  • Chapter 2 (p. 38)

• Half the miseries of humankind’s history have originated in those who think they see in the fellow next to them virtues and vices that exist only in the mind of the beholder.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 48)

• I reflected that the genial glow that surrounds the doer of a good deed loses some of its warmth and brightness when the recipient meets every action with the pinched face of suspicion.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 48)

• “Wealth tends to generate wealth,” he began.
  I gave a qualified assent. “If it does not instead give birth to folly.”
  • Chapter 3 (p. 57)

• The insane had a tendency to cloak others in the strange garments they found hanging in the backs of their own mental wardrobes. So, for that matter, did the rest of us, but the consequences of error were usually less drastic.
  • Chapter 3 (p. 65)

• “Are you familiar with Wallader’s theory that every society is fundamentally organized around one or another of the cardinal sins?”
  “I believe not,” I said.
  “He argues that the true seed of every culture, whatever the ideals to which it gives lip service, always turns out to be one of the seven mortal iniquities identified by the ancients: pride, greed, and anger are the most common; lust, gluttony, and envy less so; those based on sloth usually do not last.”
  • Chapter 4 (p. 70)

• I realized that Chumblot’s brief had told only the official story which, as in many sophisticated societies, departed starkly from the practical facts.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 85)

• It is as hugely irrelevant to us as the literary outpourings of a poet are to a bacterium living in his lower bowel. Indeed, to an even tinier mite living in the bacterium’s vacuole. It just doesn’t matter.
  • Chapter 4 (p. 89)

• “There was no indication of anything sinister?”
  “No, though a truly sinister intrusion would be phrased in such a way as to appear not sinister.”
  “That is not reassuring,” I said.
  • Chapter 5 (p. 107)

• When we have done more traveling together, you will come to see that occasionally we must be other than forthright with local authorities. Many of them lack imagination and react poorly to creativity and unexpected innovation.
  • Chapter 7 (p. 154)

• “Magic,” said my integrator, “has rules. At the heart of the willful, associative universe, we find a modicum of rationalism, just as we find uncertainty at the core of the rational cosmos.”
  “Exactly,” I said. “And there seems no other explanation for it than sheer perversity on the part of whatever entity is responsible for the whole untidy business.”
  I thought about it a moment more then said, “Perversity, or just a very idiosyncratic sense of humor.”
  • Chapter 9 (p. 176)

• When all the good ideas have been expended, I quoted to myself, one might as well try a bad one.
  • Chapter 11 (p. 222)