Quotes from Kraken

“Any moment called now is always full of possibles.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“We should have just killed him, that's a lesson, don't get creative with revenge”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.'

'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?'

'Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?'

'Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Subby Subby Subby," whispered Goss. "Keep those little bells on your slippers as quiet as you can. Sparklehorse and Starpink have managed to creep out of Apple Palace past all the monkeyfish, but if we're silent as tiny goblins we can surprise them and then all frolic off together in the Meadow of Happy Kites.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“We cannot see the universe. We are in the darkness of a trench, a deep cut, dark water heavier than earth, presences lit by our own blood, little biolumes, heroic and pathetic Promethei too afraid or weak to steal fire but able still to love. Gods are among us and they care nothing and are nothing like us.

This is how we are brave: we worship them anyway.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“He knows religion is bollocks," Collingswood said. "He just wishes he didn't.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Just thugs only ever got so far. The best thugs were all psychologists.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“The light was going: some cloud cover arriving, as if summoned by drama.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Virgina Woolf versus Edward Lear."

"Christ Alive," said Billy. "Are those my only choices?"

"I went for Lear," said Leon. "Partly out of fidelity to the letter L. Partly because given the choice between nonsense and boojy wittering you blatantly have to choose nonsense.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“As he got older, Billy suspected, he would, Dicaprio-like, simply become like an increasingly wizened child.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Dane discarded his speargun with visible relief. As a paladin of the Church of God Kraken, he had few options. Like many groups devoid of real power and realpolitik, the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough.
It was a common moan. Drunk new soldiers of the Cathedral of the Bees might whine: “It’s not that I don’t think sting-tipped blowpipes aren’t cool, it’s just…” “I’ve gotten rally good with the steam-cudgel,” a disaffected Pistonpunk might ask her elders “but wouldn’t it be useful to…?” Oh for a carbine, devout assassins pined.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“You got to be worried when they're agreeing about anything," she said. "Prophets. That's the last bloody thing you want prophets to do.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Fortune-telling was quantum betting, a competitive scrying of variably likely outcomes.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Dark came early and stayed full of lights and the shouts of children.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“But this was not quite the right kraken apocalypse.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Just her, three men, a fidgety pig and lawful intent.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Of all the skills necessary for her work, what she was perhaps worst at was being polite to inanimate things.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“When he had first started at the center, he had liked to think that he was unexpectedly cool-looking for such a job. Now he knew that he surprised no one, that no one expected scientists to look like scientists anymore.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“How do you...? What is it you're doing?" he said to Vardy as the man took a breath, mid-insight. What do you call that? Billy thought. That reconstitutitive intelligence, berserker meme-splicing, seeing in nothings first patterns, then correspondence, then causality and dissident sense.

Vardy even smiled. "Paranoid," he said. "Theology.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“A few mad exaggerations, alright, within a couple of days: swear to fucking god, they were like throwing grenades and pulling out all kinds of crazy knackery, it was out of control. Whatever. As if the story, if big enough, reflected glory on the teller.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Some midnight-of-all or other [apocalypse] was predicted every few days or nights. Most came to nothing, leaving relevant prophets cringing with a unique embarrassment as the sum rose. It was a very particular shame, that of now ex-worshippers avoiding each other's eyes in the unexpected aftermath of 'final' acts -- crimes, admissions, debaucheries and abandon.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Your job is to get villains. Right? You'll have to know what to do. If you don't know, you have to find out. If you can't find out you bloody well make it up and then you make it so.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“It ain't that he's not interested in, like, persuasiveness, get me? He's interested in it. Like something in a jar.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

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Popular quotes

“Just like a murderer jumps out of nowhere in an alley, love jumped out in front of us and struck us both at once”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, quote from The Master and Margarita

“The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from On the Road

“My heart died a while back. [Eragon]”
― Christopher Paolini, quote from Eragon

“I think all mothers shine a little, you know, at least until their kids grow up enough to watch out for themselves.”
― Stephen King, quote from The Shining

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.