Quotes from Nemesis Games

“There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“You can tell you’ve found a really interesting question when nobody wants you to answer it.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“This is as good as it gets. Can’t expect everyone to be on the same page. We’re still humans after all. Some percentage of us are always going to be assholes.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Looking back through history, there are a lot more men who thought they were Alexander the Great than men who actually were.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Here’s the thing,” Amos said. “If you did go in there, you might feel like you had to do something. And then I might feel like I had to do something. And then we’d all be doing things, and we’d all wind up having a worse day, just in general.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Murtry swung first, so technically, that was self-defense. And if I’d wanted him dead, don’t you think he’d be dead? It’s not like I quit hitting him because I was tired.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“What did you do?” Fred asked. “There was a button,” Holden said. “I pushed it.” “Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn’t it?”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Well, mostly I’m a mechanic. But the idea that the UN has a file on me somewhere that lists me as the Rocinante’s killer? That’s kind of awesome.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“A bicycle?” Amos leaned on the breakfast bar. “Sure. They don’t need fuel, they don’t get sick. Most of the repairs, you can handle on your own. You’re looking for post-apocalyptic transportation, bikes are the way to go.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“No, it wasn’t. It was the scariest fucking answer to Fermi’s paradox I can think of. Do you know why there aren’t any Indians in your Old West analogy? Because they’re already dead. The whatever-they-were that built all that got a head start and used their protomolecule gate builder to kill all the rest. And that’s not even the scary part. The really frightening part is that something else came along, shot the first guys in the back of the head, and left their corpses scattered across the galaxy. The thing we should be asking is, who fired the magic bullet?”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“We’re not making any official statements, especially when James Holden’s in the room. No offense, but your track record for blurting information at inopportune moments is the stuff of legend.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Alien superweapons were used,” Alex said, walking into the room, sleep-sweaty hair standing out from his skull in every direction. “The laws of physics were altered, mistakes were made.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Alex’s experience of real family—of blood relations—was more like having a lot of people who had all wound up on the same mailing list without knowing quite why they signed up for it.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important. In Amos’ experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. The loud, blustering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“He kind of wished he had a hat.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Hey,” she said. “Hey.” “So I have a thing.” “Is it a thing I can fix?” Holden asked. “Point me at the thing.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Avasarala laughed at that. “True. But if he’s sending his hired killer to Earth, we—” “Wait, what?” “If Holden was—” “Forget Holden. You called me his hired killer. Is that how you guys think of me? The killer on Holden’s payroll?” Avasarala frowned. “You’re not?” “Well, mostly I’m a mechanic. But the idea that the UN has a file on me somewhere that lists me as the Rocinante’s killer? That’s kind of awesome.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“That Holden is up to something? Have you met that guy? He’s never done anything secretly in his life.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Amazing how much we’ve managed to do, considering how we’re doing it all with jumped-up social primates and evolutionary behaviors from the Pleistocene.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“She sat at the dining table, a steaming mug of tea in front of her, a distant look in her eyes. Holden couldn’t tell if she was melancholy or solving a complex engineering problem in her head. Those looks were confusingly similar.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Things changed, and they didn’t change back. But sometimes they got better.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Probably the most common last words that day were going to be Huh, that’s weird. That or Oh shit.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Realizing you’ve got shit on your fingers is the first step toward washing your hands.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“The birds, on the other hand, were going crazy. They filled the air with chirps and trills and songs. It was probably sparrow for Holy shit, what’s going on, we’re all gonna die, but it sounded pretty.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“He’s using you as his external, aftermarket conscience.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Did he kill anyone?” Erich asked. When neither guard answered, he said, “Then he’s still being polite.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“It was strange how a person could be so vitally important in your life, and yet you had nothing to say to them when they weren’t sharing the same air.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“For another thing, we’re under martial law, so I can do very nearly whatever the fuck I want. Including march through your precious little ship there towing you along behind in a ball gag and lacy underwear. So your warrant bullshit? You can roll that up and fuck it. Now tell me why I’m here.”
“You know just ’cause you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should. I don’t look great in frills.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“Never heard of ’em.”
“Yeah, you have, but context is everything, ain’t it?”
― quote from Nemesis Games

“And even then, she hadn’t wanted to die. She’d just wanted it to be over. To be free of it all. For the pain and guilt to be over. And the feeling of being trapped. She might have been able to stand all the rest of it, but not the sense of being caught.”
― quote from Nemesis Games

Popular quotes

“There were a thousand noises: spoons clattering, liquid being poured in glugs, a deep, unctuous bubbling from the stove. Heat blasted him in a roar as someone opened an oven. It carried the glorious smell of fresh baking.”
― Laura Madeleine, quote from The Confectioner's Tale

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from The Inferno

“You go out into your world, and try and find the things that will be useful to you. Your weapons. Your tools. Your charms. You find a record, or a poem, or a picture of a girl that you pin to the wall and go, "Her. I'll try and be her. I'll try and be her - but here." You observe the way others walk, and talk, and you steal little bits of them - you collage yourself out of whatever you can get your hands on. You are like the robot Johnny 5 in Short Circuit, crying, "More input! More input for Johnny 5! as you rifle through books and watch films and sit in front of the television, trying to guess which of these things that you are watching - Alexis Carrington Colby walking down a marble staircase; Anne of Green Gables holding her shoddy suitcase; Cathy wailing on the moors; Courtney Love wailing in her petticoat; Dorothy Parker gunning people down; Grace Jones singing "Slave to the Rhythm" - you will need when you get out there. What will be useful. What will be, eventually, you?

And you will be quite on your own when you do all this. There is no academy where you can learn to be yourself; there is no line manager slowly urging you toward the correct answer. You are midwife to yourself, and will give birth to yourself, over and over, in dark rooms, alone.

And some versions of you will end in dismal failure - many prototypes won't even get out the front door, as you suddenly realize that no, you can't style-out an all-in-one gold bodysuit and a massive attitude problem in Wolverhampton. Others will achieve temporary success - hitting new land-speed records, and amazing all around you, and then suddenly, unexpectedly exploding, like the Bluebird on Coniston Water.

But one day you'll find a version of you that will get you kissed, or befriended, or inspired, and you will make your notes accordingly, staying up all night to hone and improvise upon a tiny snatch of melody that worked.

Until - slowly, slowly - you make a viable version of you, one you can hum every day. You'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic, even while you're busy doing other things. What your nature began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely - as you're too busy doing, now. And ten years will pass without you even noticing.

And later, over a glass of wine - because you drink wine now, because you are grown - you will marvel over what you did. Marvel that, at the time, you kept so many secrets. Tried to keep the secret of yourself. Tried to metamorphose in the dark. The loud, drunken, fucking, eyeliner-smeared, laughing, cutting, panicking, unbearably present secret of yourself. When really you were about as secret as the moon. And as luminous, under all those clothes.”
― Caitlin Moran, quote from How to Build a Girl

“Thinking that you can't protect the ones you love, you have to hope they're smart enough to save themselves.”
― Laura Ruby, quote from Bone Gap

“Since then, he could only ever think about his sister, one wall away. And how he hoped Deenie never did things like this. With guys like him.”
― Megan Abbott, quote from The Fever

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.