“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
China Miéville
Born place: in Norwich, England, The United Kingdom
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“Do you want my input or is this just an angry tirade you need to vent? (Acheron)
Both! (Kat)
Okay, you rant and I’ll add my comments at the end. (Acheron)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Devil May Cry
“You have been with me, as close as the tips of my fingers, even when we were years and seas apart. Your being was like the hum of a plucked string at the edge of my hearing, or a scent carried on a breeze. Did not you feel it so?”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Errand
“(...) człowiek nie może pozostawać bez końca w stanie wielkiego przerażenia. Albo emocje rosną do tego stopnia, ze pod naciskiem coraz okropniejszych wypadków i skojarzeń ono ogarnia go tak bardzo, że ucieka bądź popada w szaleństwo. Lu też wewnętrzne poruszenie zacznie go stopniowo opuszczać, ustępując miejsca rosnącemu opanowaniu.”
― Susan Hill, quote from The Woman in Black
“That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long
rides up winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to Europe. Fine women. Were they
that much more clever than I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate it.
I'd do it too! I'd save my pennies. I'd get an idea, I'd spring a loan. I'd hire and fire. I'd keep whiskey in
my desk drawer. I'd have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make the paperboy on the
corner come in his pants when he saw it wobble. I'd cheat on her and she'd know it and keep silent in
order to live in my house with my wealth. I'd fire men just to see the look of dismay on their faces. I'd
fire women who didn't deserve to be fired.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Factotum
“Off with you" is a phrase used by people who lack the curtesy to say something more polite, such as, "if there's nothing else you require I must be going" or "I'm sorry but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please" or even "excuse me but I believe you have mistaken my home for your own and my valuable belongings for yours and I must ask you to return the items in question to me and leave my home after untying me from this chair, as I'm unable to do it myself, if it's not too much trouble.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Penultimate Peril
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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.
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