comparatives

“The place in the egg, Yaichka, is a very elaborate place, a place to hide a death from its owner, and also to lead him to it. It is a perfect world, a world which could not survive outside the jeweled egg of Alkonost and Koschei, no matter how many permutations of this story the world might cycle through. (For of course you know the world tries on this story over and over, trying to make it work out differently, trying to make it perfect as an egg.) The world that is left behind when you forget what sorrow looks like, and death, too. A prophetic world that can never come true.”

— Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

FREDERICK CHILTON: The optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true. This is your best possible world, Will. Not getting a better one. 

— Hannibal 3x04, ‘Apertivo’, written by Nick Antosca, Steve Lightfoot, & Bryan Fuller

HANNIBAL: Do we talk about teacups and time and the rules of disorder?
WILL GRAHAM: The teacup is broken. It’ll never gather itself back together again.
HANNIBAL: Not even in your mind?

— Hannibal 3x07, ‘Digestivo’, written by Steve Lightfoot & Bryan Fuller