Quotes from Dead City

“Zues?" I said.
"His computer. He named it." Then she whispered conspiratorially, "He acts like it's a person."
"I do not," he said as we walked down the hall toward his room.
"You gave it a birthday party," she said.
Grayson stopped walking for a moment. "Annual hard-drive maintenance and software upgrades do not count as a birthday party."
"No," she said. "But singing 'Happy Birthday' to it does."
He took a deep breath. They've obviously been through this before. "You know I was testing the new voice-recognition software."
Natalie looked at me. "Birthday party.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“I hate zombies.
I know that sound prejudiced. I'm sure some zombies are really nice to kittens and love their parents. But it's been my experience that most are not the kind of people you want sending you friend requests.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“If this had been a public-school locker room, there would have been some gray jumbo-sized garbage cans nearby, and I probably could've taken care of cleanup by myself. But apparently the girls of St. Andrew's don't throw anything away, because all they had was a tiny wastebasket and some recycling bins. There were bins for paper, plastic, and glass, but none for rotting corpses. Go figure.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“I've never had much luck with New Year's resolutions. Last year I only lasted three days before realizing I couldn't survive without junk food. And the year before that, when my sister and I promised not to argue anymore, we didn't even make it to the end of my dad's New Year's Eve party. I'll spare you the gory details, but fruit punch and guacamole were involved. So was dry cleaning.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“He was tall like a basketball player, and superthin. His hair had been dyed shoe-polish black, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He wore mismatched earrings and, judging by the splotches along his jawline, he also wore makeup. Very bad makeup. Even by New York subway standards he was weird.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“(If yours is not available, you can always steal your sister’s.)”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“Death is part of the natural order of life,” she would explain. “You shouldn’t be scared of it. You should be respectful of it.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“My mom had mismatched eyes. It’s called “heterochromia,” and I have it too. My left eye is blue and my right is green, just like hers. She said it was our special genetic bond.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“To say that Grayson’s little brothers are loud is like saying jet engines are kind of noisy. They sounded like a troop of howler monkeys as they raced down the hallway toward his room.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“I mean it, guys," I said. "Why don't you play Two Foot Trivia instead? It's just as fun and much safer."
"First of all, this is completely safe," Grayson replied. "Second, if we had both feet down, we'd just be asking each other trivia questions."
"Which would be lame," added Alex.
"But isn't that what you're doing right now?" I asked.
"No," Grayson said defensively. "Balancing on one foot makes it a sport.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“We’ll have to go down into Dead City.”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

“(But it was still better than our class visit to the wastewater treatment plant.)”
― James Ponti, quote from Dead City

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“I hate your kind."

"Because someone like me made you?" He laughs again. "I'm surprised you aren't more pleased to meet me. You're as close as anyone ever comes to meeting God. Come now, don't you have any questions for God?"

Emiko scowls at him, nods at the cheshires. "If you were my God, you would have made New People first."

The old gaijin laughs. "That would have been exciting."

"We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires."

"You may yet." He shrugs. "You do not fear cibiscosis or blister rust."

"No." Emiko shakes her head. "We cannot breed. We depend on you for that." She moves her hand. Telltale stutter-stop motion. "I am marked. Always, we are marked. As obvious as a ten-hands or a megodont."

He waves a hand dismissively. "The windup movement is not a required trait. There is no reason it couldn't be removed. Sterility. . ." He shrugs. "Limitations can be stripped away. The safeties are there because of lessons learned, but they are not required; some of them even make it more difficult to create you. Nothing about you is inevitable." He smiles. "Someday, perhaps, all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look back at the poor Neanderthals."

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Emiko slumps.

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Emiko feels her heart pounding. "You can do this, truly?"

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― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from The Windup Girl

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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