The High Auction Quotes

“Why did you stop looking for it?”
“Secrets of mesmerism?” Magic Mama scoffs. “Look around, Kusha. The place you’re in gives you some problems. You either solve the problem or stay with it as it is. But whichever path you choose, it shapes your purpose. Maybe my purpose is more earthly: dealing with a gutter, getting water from a fall miles away. I’m aging. I don’t have time to earn more time, Kusha. I don’t have time for philosophies.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Sometimes, there are those people whose voices are so strong, you just do what they say. You hold their glasses or keep their purses or buy them dinner because they ask you to do it out of the blue. You don’t ponder if you want to do it or not. Because they don’t give you the time to think. Then, you end up doing it, for you’re too much in the present limbo. It’s a basic manipulation that works on indecisive people. Kusha recognizes it, as Meera has warned her about all sorts of traits to identify any High-Grade con-artist.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Sometimes, curiosity overpowers the warning of danger. It just does. Especially, when the human brain doesn’t have enough memories to measure the level of danger. Because the brain lacks examples, past references. People call it experience. So, when the reference data is few, the only option is to get more of it. Curiosity is an inexperienced brain’s call to collect reference data. Right now, this very human curiosity burns her brain.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“But you must speak from here.” Meera showed her belly. “Words are magic, sweetie. With words, you can re-code fate.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“If you win time, you don’t want to live with one partner for the rest of your life. Until-death-do-us-part happens when time eats your energy to explore.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Anything intelligent always looks for its source—it’s the oldest law of the universe.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“TJ frowns; she can’t write about willing wind and water in the official report. Voicing elements is a rumor. However, she remembers what her grandmother said five decades ago when she was a child; (it was shortly after the war): “Anyone who trains hard can be a Grade A by the time they’re forty or fifty. But it takes decades more to become strong enough to voice one element.”
“One element?” TJ asked.
“Do you want to voice the entire universe then?”
“Can’t I?”

Grandmother didn’t answer, not directly anyway, as most great masters do. They never say you can’t do this or no one can do that or that thing is impossible just because they couldn’t do it, or because they hadn’t found it yet. True masters answer differently. Wisely. Like her grandmother answered that day.

“Do you know why we evolve, Tirity?”
“Because we’re supposed to?” TJ replied.
“Yes. It’s in the grand design. We’re ‘supposed to’ evolve. Not just in body, but also in mind,” she said. “In time. You see, time is the key. If given infinite time, you can evolve your mind infinitely. But we live only for a hundred years or so.”

“A hundred years is ‘only’?”
“You’re so young, Tirity! But yes, it is little for a complete cognitive evolution. Most hard trainers can prolong it to a couple of hundred years. They even get to call the wind or grow a giant plant that could touch the clouds. But voicing everything in the universe? I think only God can do it, the God who created everything with only words. And if God created the world so that he could see how far the humans can evolve, then I’d say, yes, even a human could get godly power. Godlier than voicing one or two elements. If. Given. The. Time.”

“How much time?”
“More than thousands of years, maybe. Could even need millions, who knows? …”

TJ smiles drily; she remembers how her eyes sparkled at the thought of becoming a goddess who could voice everything. She dreamed of flying in the air or walking in space. She thought of making her own garden full of giant flowers where only enormous butterflies would dance. Some days, when she played video games in VR, she even dreamed of voicing the thunder and lightning to join her wooden sword. She thought time could help her do it.

But she didn’t know then, time only makes you grow up.
Time steals your dreams.
Time only turns you into an adult.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Even time can be smelled and seen if you are observant, if you know how to smell the abstract. And if you do, you risk exposure to a certain addiction. The addiction to smell.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“‘Rare men are born sometimes who act and don’t complain,’ ...”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Some say whatever they utter with voice becomes an enchantment. Like that in Shattya Yug—the age of truth—the thousands of years old era when people spoke only the truth. And whatever they used to say would always happen, whether it was a blessing or a curse.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Are you serving a house instead of its master, then?”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Who do you serve?”
― Misba, The High Auction

“She speaks only 1% of her thoughts.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Natives here always boast: We started the revolution; our heroes freed the world.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Her blue hair and blue eyes look nothing like those of Rashad and Meera, which pains her sometimes.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“But these three words got imprinted in his brain much earlier than that. How? The Monk doesn’t remember. Yet, at one point, in the very distant past, these three words became their religion. Their religion, and not his.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Everyone worships a war hero in their hearts, even after five decades. He ignores them.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“She gets all her old cars and tools from places you don’t want your daughters to visit. And Rashad Gaumont certainly doesn’t want her to visit Magic Mama, the not-evolved-enough, middle-aged man who lives in the Junk Land and works in the Old City. “He’s not a citizen! He lives in a bus! So what if he made it himself? So what if he teaches you about machines? Just don’t meet him.”

“Why?” Kusha used to ask Rashad, and she’d always get the same answer: “The unevolved kind brings chaos and wars.” ”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Bother? Or not bother?”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Don’t bother, the Monk—Yuan—decides with a sigh. He swore he wouldn’t get carried away, no matter how much others tried.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Right. Seven years have passed with the Gaumonts, so that excuse of being ‘new’ isn’t going to work anymore.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“The Devil’s Book: a three-foot-tall ancient book some believe the devil himself wrote. Yes, the real devil. Others think the book contains all the secrets of mesmerism.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“He thought he was protecting them while guarding the North. Maybe he was wrong.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“How will you explain thirty-seven rarest animals going missing without lying? Even lying wouldn’t help. They will find out during the next appointment. And I still believe you shouldn’t have burned them,” Pico tries to reason.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Their master, not his.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“On a highway much closer to the sky, it happens again. This time he witnesses it: A crow—already dead and cold, as unholy as uncontrolled emotions—hits his windshield at bullet speed.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“He climbs the cliff, leaping on stones and branches, as if he’s a feather and not a ninety-nine-year-old man. His wooden sandals making sounds: pit-pat … pit-pat …”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Not everyone fancies the war heroes, especially not the rogues—the ex-High-Grade citizens.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Rotten feather … Dead animals … Dead crow …
Is this an omen? A threat? The Monk looks for reasons.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“They always need fresh, enthusiastic programmers. More important: they need programmers chosen by a star programmer. Magic Mama told her all about how recruiting happens in well-known companies.

Unlike small companies, they depend more on shining logos. Logos like The Resolution Race Champion, The Gold Winner of Code the Crude, or Year’s Best Thesis Contributor are gems in their crowns. Everyone loves collecting gems. Talents are the gems big companies prefer plucking in reduced expenses.

The best gems are the hard-working Low Grades and the non-citizens from the Junk Land. Who wouldn’t love a talent born in the gutters?—Just lure them with citizenship.”
― Misba, The High Auction