“She turned to Skulduggery and held out her arms. “Come here, you.”
He tilted his head. “My hugs are for special occasions only.”
“Hug me.”
“I prefer the old tradition.”
“Hug.”
“Would a handshake do?”
“Hug.”
“A pat on the back?”
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms round him. “Hug,” she said.
He sighed, and his hands settled on her shoulders. The others were warm and their embraces strong – with Skulduggery the hug was cold, and there were areas on his jacket that gave way beneath her fingers, and she could feel the emptiness within. She didn’t mind.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Are you sulking?”
“Me? No. I don’t sulk.”
“You sound like you’re sulking.”
“I’m just waiting for the violent urges to subside.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Suddenly Saracen Rue looked old and tired, and Skulduggery Pleasant came into focus as what he really was – a genius, a killer, a tortured soul, and the only true dead man among them.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“I don’t want a perfectly safe weapon. I want a dangerous weapon that hurts people.”
He took the stick from her, rapped it against her head. She howled and he nodded.
“See? It hurts people.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Thank you,” Skulduggery said to her. “I fear he was about to start insulting me.”
“I couldn’t let that happen,” she said. “Your ego is a fragile and delicate thing.”
“You see? You understand me.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Reading those books is all he does these days. I think he’s even read some of them twice. What kind of disturbed individual would read the same book twice, I ask you?”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Dexter, please put your shirt on. Valkyrie’s getting distracted.”
“I’m not,” she said, then smiled at Vex. “You don’t have to put your shirt on.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“If he can't get to the clock, any idea how we deal with this lot?"
"With great care," Donegan suggested.
"How about we run off shout and they follow?" Said Gracious. "Then, just when they think they've caught us they fall into our trap."
"OK," said Tanith. "And that trap would be?"
"A big hole we'd dug earlier and covered with branches.'
Tanith frowned. "I thought you were meant to be smart."
Gracious frowned back at her. "Who told you that?"
"Gracious is book smart," said Donegan. "He leaves the real world thinking to people like you and me and small dogs that he meets."
"The innocent are often the wisest.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“She wants to be polite and not hurt your feelings, so she's not going to laugh right now. But inside, inside she's laughing.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Sanguine felt the ridiculous urge to reach out and poke him, just to see if he’d react, but he’d seen that kind of anger before. It was the quiet kind. The dangerous kind.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“There's a clock on the wall. Press your hand against the face and turn it very slightly to the. Left. There'll be a click to tell you it's done."
"Sounds easy enough."
"Yes it does," said Sanguine. "Kiss for good luck?"
"Maybe later," said Gracious.
"How about a handshake?" Asked Donegan.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“This book is dedicated to you.
Whether you are a Minion or a Skuttlebug or just, you know, a normal person, it’s because of you that I get to do what I love and laughingly call it work.
I know some of you by name and some of you by sight (and some of you by smell, but let’s not get into that) but there are still countless others I have never met, and to all of you I say thank you for your support, your passion, and your lunacy.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“I know she was sent to keep an eye on me and then kill me, but … do you think she did fall in love with me, even just a small bit?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
“She stuck a knife in you.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s rarely a good sign.”
“I suppose.”
“But hey, you had some good times, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Yes we did.”
“Before she stabbed you.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“They have a name for it these days. They have a name for everything these days. They call it Second Lifetime Syndrome, and it happens when a sorcerer watches her family and friends age and die around her. You’ll latch on to other mages from that moment on, because what’s the point of going through all that pain again? Valkyrie, there are some stark realities you have to face. You’re going to look the way you do for the next eighty years. In two hundred years, you’ll look twenty-five. You won’t be able to form attachments to mortals. They will start to notice something is different about you when they’re lined and saggy and you’re still young and perky. You’re going to have to say goodbye to your parents before they start to ask questions.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“strike from the shadows, disapear into darkness”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“I was going straight for Mantis, but then that bloody gas got in my eyes and, I don't know, some massive bloke reared up in front of me. I hit him, but I swear, it was like hiting a wall."
Gracious nodded. "You hit a wall."
Maybury blinked at him. "I what?"
"I saw it. You ran into a cloud of gas and stumbled around for a second until you reached a wall, and then you shrieked and punched it. It was very heroic.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“He looked at Ghastly. "Thoughts?"
"I want to kill Sanguine," was the first thing Ghastly said. "And I want to do it slowly, in front of a lot of people. Using a hammer”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Portia followed after, a smirk on her face, and Syc hissed as he passed.
Donegan waited till they were gone, then swung round to Gracious.
"He hissed at me."
"He hissed at you."
"Should I hiss back?"
"It's a bit late."
"He could still hear."
"Not unless you run after him."
"Do you think I should?"
"Probably not."
"I think I should."
"It'd be a bit weird."
"You might be right." Donegan pursed his lips, then shook his fist at the doorway.
"That showed him," said Gracious.
Donegan nodded. "He'll think twice about hissing at me again.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“He things we think he's a double agent, working for them but secretly working for us. He doesn't know we know he's a triple agent, working for them but secretly working for us but really he's secretly working for them. Dexter, how's your brain?"
"Hurting.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Night descended on Roarhaven like a woolly blanket of blackness with holes in it that were the stars.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“He looked at Ghastly. "Thoughts?"
"I want to kill Sanguine," was the first thing Ghastly said. "And I want to do it slowly, in front of a lot of people. Using a hammer."
Skulduggery nodded. "Very healthy.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“The Engineer smiled (internally, for of course it had no mouth). It was feeling good. It was feeling optimistic. Moving at its current speed, it would arrive back in Ireland in plenty of time to shut everything down before a series of overloads and power loops inevitably led to a sequence of events which would, in turn, eventually lead to the probable destruction of the world. The Engineer wasn't worried.
And then the truck hit it.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“The door handle turned. Someone knocked, and a man's voice called, "Uh, hello?"
Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery, looked back at the others, looked at Skulduggery again.
"Hello," Skulduggery said, speaking loudly to be heard over the alarm.
"Hi," said the man. "The door's locked."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"That's funny" said Skulduggery. "Hold on a moment." He reached out, jiggled the handle a few times, then stepped back. "Yes, it's locked. You wouldn't happen to have the key, would you?"
There was a delay in response from the other side. "I'm sorry," the man called, "Who am I speaking with?"
Skulduggery tilted his head. "Who am I speaking with?"
"This is Oscar Nightfall."
"Are you sure?"
"What?"
"Are you sure you are who you say you are? This is the Great Chamber, after all. It's a very important place for very important people. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone, and I'm not saying that this applies to you in particular, but someone could conceivably lie about who they are in order to gain access to this room. I have to be vigilant, especially now. There's a war on, you know."
Oscar Nightfall sounded puzzled. Who are you?"
"Me? I'm nobody. I'm a cleaner. I'm one of the cleaners. I was cleaning the thrones and the door shut behind me. Now I can't get out. Could you try and find a key?"
"What's your name? Give me you name."
"No. It's mine."
"Tell me your name!"
"My name is Oscar Nightfall."
"What? No it isn't. That's my name."
"Is it? Since when?"
"Since I took it!"
"You didn't ask me if you could take it. I was using it first."
"Open this door immediately."
"I don't have the key."
"I'll fetch the Cleavers."
"I found the key. It was in the keyhole. It's always the last place you look isn't it? I'm unlocking the door now. Here we go."
Skulduggery relaxed the air pressure, opened the door, and pulled Oscar Nightfall inside. Valkyrie stuck out her foot, and Oscar stumbled over it and Vex shoved him to Ghastly and Ghastly punched him. Oscar fell down and didn't get up again. Skulduggery closed the door once more.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“With the speed of a cobra, Scapegrace lashed out at Bagatelle, catching him on the ear with a vicious chop. He ducked as Shun reached for him, and spun with a kick that came dangerously close to landing. Mud fired off a punch that Scapegrace blocked with his chin, and Scapegrace countered with a flailing hand to the air as he fell.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“We're authors, too," Donegan said, "and we've been trying to get into the picture-book market. We have this idea for a Where's Wally type thing, except in ours, you'd have to find the one living person hiding in among all the dismembered corpses while the chainsaw-wielding killer hunts him down. You know, for kids."
"We're going to call is Save the Survivor," Gracious said.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“I am what prevents the Accelerator from being a bomb."
"Except you didn't," said Gracious. "Because you weren't around."
"I got bored."
"You're a machine."
"Machines can become bored, too."
Gracious looked suddenly concerned. "My toaster is bored?"
"Perhaps, " said the Engineer. "I do not know many toasters.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“With age comes wisdom, you ever hear that?"
"I did, but I've found that wisdom has a cut-off point of around one hundred and twenty years. Once you reach that, you're really as wise as you're going to get.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Should we change our name?" Saracen asked. "The Dead People, perhaps?"
"The Dead Non-Gender-Specific Persons?" Vex suggested.
"Dead Men and a Girl? Dead Men and a Little Lady?”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“What are you doing?"
"I'm, uh, acting normal."
"No you're not. You're acting like someone pretending to be normal. Stop pretending and start acting, but don't act like you're not pretending, that'll make it worse.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
“Ghastly Bespoke’s opinions were not always right. It was his opinion, for example, that he could stand with his back to you and you wouldn’t stick a knife in it. How wrong he was.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men
Derek Landy
Born place: in Lusk, Ireland
Born date October 23, 1974
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“When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to catch whole for they will break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book-to open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from Cannery Row
“It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what you say. It's not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from The Host
“Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.”
― Wilkie Collins, quote from The Woman in White
“I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Just Listen
“The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. … The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
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