“They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," Valkyrie said.
China glanced at her. "They've obviously never met me.”
“Stairs," Valkyrie said, disappointed.
"Not just ordinary stairs," Skulduggery told her as he led the way down. "Magic stairs."
"Really?"
"Oh, yes."
She followed him into the darkness. "How are they magic?"
"They just are."
"In what way?"
"In a magicky way."
She glared at the back of his head. "They aren't magic at all, are they?"
"Not really.”
“I need a weapon,” Valkyrie muttered.
“You’re an Elemental with a Necromancer ring, trained in
a variety of martial arts by some of the best fighters in the world,” Skulduggery pointed out. “I’m fairly certain that makes you a weapon.”
“I mean a weapon you hold. You have a gun, Tanith has a sword... I want a stick.”
“I’ll buy you a stick for Christmas.”
“It's not that I want you to go, it's just that I don't want you to stay." - China Sorrows -”
“So he has no head'
'Thats usually what headless means'
'No head at all?'
'Your really not getting the whole headless thing are you?'
'Its just kind of silly even for us...”
“Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up
her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he
walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.
"Stop doing that,” she sighed.
“Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.
“Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.”
“I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said.
They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched
downwards. “Am I smiling now?”
“No.”
“Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.”
“Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he lay there. “Oh God, please don’t kill me.”
“If you had let me finish,” Skulduggery said, slightly annoyed, “you would have heard me say, ‘Come out, we’re not
going to hurt you’. Idiot.”
“He probably wouldn’t have said idiot,” Valkyrie told the sobbing man. “We’re trying our best to be nice.”
The man blinked through his tears, and looked up.
“You’re... You’re not going to kill me?”
“No, we’re not,” Valkyrie said gently, “so long as you wipe your nose right now.”
“Corrival looked around. 'So is this it? Is everyone here? Erskine, maybe you should start the ball rolling. I have places to go and things to do.'
'Me?' Ravel asked. 'Why do I have to start it? You're the most respected mage here. You start it, or Skulduggery.'
Skulduggery shook his head. 'I can't start it. I don't like most of these people. I might start shooting.”
“You're under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
“She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person's teenage years lasted well into their fifties.”
“I understand perfectly. Darquesse isn't a separate entity. She isn't another person. She's you. If you make the wrong choices, if you stop loving the people who love you, if you allow the world to twist and turn and change you, then yes, the future we've seen will come to pass. But if you fight, and if you kick, and struggle, and refuse to give in to the apathy, or the anger, or the hopelessness, then you'll change the future, and you'll walk your own path. And I'll be right there beside you, Valkyrie. I'll always be beside you.”
“I find it rude to laugh at a man with a sword.”
“Sometimes it's not what you say, Valkyrie, it's just the fact that you're saying it.”
“But I'm really enjoying my retirement. I get to sleep in every day. I do crossword puzzles and eat cake.”
“Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.”
“Personally, I think knees should be kept for the eighth or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise you know? 'oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought”
“The problem with living so long is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay...but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think.”
“I mean you ACRES of harm,' Dalrymple growled. 'Untold QUANTITIES of harm. I will visit a whole CONTINENT of harm upon you before we are through.”
“What's a Dullahan?'
'He's a headless horseman, in the service of the banshee.'
'Headless?'
'Yes.'
'Seriously?'
'Yes.'
'So he has no head?'
'That's usually what headless means.'
'No head at all?'
'You're really getting hung up on this headless thing, aren't you?'
'It's just kind of silly, even for us.'
'Yet you spend your days with a living skeleton.'
'But at least he has a head.'
'True.'
'He even has a spare.”
“He'd once known a man who said that life hinged on the moment, that everything changed in the blink of an eye. Tesseract knew the truth of that as well as anybody. It was in those moments that he struck, after all, snatching people's lives away. He'd always known that it was only a matter of time before one of those moment's worked against him.”
“It always surprised Valkyrie whenever she realized just how close the weird and the wonderful, and the fierce and the frightening, lived to the rest pf the non-magical, mortal world.”
“She’s not… She’s not datin’ the skeleton, is she? How would that be even possible, let alone… nice? He’s got no skin, or lips, or… or nothin’.”
“Wow," she said. "It's like you're teaching me something and being all wise."
"You are not easy to get along with," Skulduggery said.”
“But he's in shackles, right? You beat him?"
"I like to think I beat him in a moral sense, in that he's an assassin and I'm not, but apart from that, no, not really.”
“Personally, I think knees should be kept for the eight or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise, you know? 'Oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought!”
“Which college?'
'Hmm?'
'Which college do you go to?'
Fletcher nodded. 'Yes.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Oh,' Fletcher said, and laughed.
Valkyrie's parents looked at Fletcher in near bewilderment. Fletcher looked back at them in total bewilderment. Valkyrie shook her head.”
“His hair is huge!... Look!... It's just sticking up at odd angles! Like a demented porcupine! - Desmond, about Fletcher's hair”
“Tanith immediately told them that Valkyrie had beaten up a priest and an old woman.”
“You Necromancers have your messiah," Finbar said, "now we Remnants have ours.”
“Was Hamlet a Man or a Woman?” and others of similarly inventive cast.”
“We know little about love. Love is like a pear. A pear is sweet and has a distinct shape. Try to define the shape of a pear. Dandelion,”
“...and even though he said we were telling secrets that we were all going to keep, I had learned a long time ago that adults played by different rules.”
“It’s true, that in concrete battles the tyrants may have the upper hand in terms of tactics, weapons, ruthlessness. What our means of protest attempt to do is to move the battles towards abstract space. Force tyranny to defend itself in language. Weaken it with public opinion, with supreme court judgements, with debates and subversive curriculum. Take hold of the media, take hold of the printing presses and the newspapers, broadcast your views from pirate radio channels, spread the word. Don’t do anything less than all you are capable of, and remember that history outlives you. It may not be until your grandchildren’s days that they’ll point back and say, there were sown the seeds of what we’ve now achieved.”
“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. It always does feel strange to be knocked out of your comfort zone.”
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.