“I’m not sending them in to do therapy,”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“OFFICIAL ESTIMATES SAY THAT BETWEEN 1,000 AND 1,500 people sleep rough on the streets of London on any given night. Many of them are young runaways, fleeing abuse of various kinds at home. Some are elderly, people at the end of their lives who have lost everything. Quite a few have mental-health problems, made worse by the impossibility of getting their required medication. All are vulnerable; always cold, always hungry, slowly getting more weak and more scared.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“It gets to you, life on the streets, even when you know that for the moment at least you have somewhere else to go. It’s like you know it’s waiting, always there, for the time when the reins slip between your fingers. Still,”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“The room was modern, but there was something about the arrangement of so much gleaming steel, the careful placement on the counters of jars and dishes, that looked timeless.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“Karen Curtis had never thought she would die to the sound of Julie Andrews.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“Of course, 85 per cent won’t be enough by itself to convict him, but it makes him someone you want to take seriously.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“I glanced round to find myself staring into turquoise eyes.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“white-suited figures were making their way around the site like phantoms. The scene-of-crime officers had arrived. They would establish an inner cordon around the body and an outer one around the crime scene.”
― Sharon J. Bolton, quote from Now You See Me
“Defenestration,” I said. “‘The act of throwing someone through a window.”
― Scott Heim, quote from Mysterious Skin
“No mar tanta tormenta, e tanto dano,
Tantas vezes a morte apercebida!
Na terra tanta guerra, tanto engano,
Tanta necessidade avorrecida!
Onde pode acolher-se um fraco humano,
Onde terá segura a curta vida,
Que não se arme, e se indigne o Céu sereno
Contra um bicho da terra tão pequeno?”
― Luís de Camões, quote from The Lusiads
“I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for me, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think:
I am here. I am okay.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“He had many formal qualifications. He was rated expert on all small arms. He had won an inter-service thousand-yard rifle competition with a record score. Anecdotally his fitness reports rated him well above average in the classroom, excellent in the field, fluently bilingual in English and French, passable in Spanish, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry, and beyond outstanding at hand-to-hand combat. Susan knew what that last rating meant. Like having a running chain saw thrown at you.”
― Lee Child, quote from 61 Hours
“I've no interest in this city. I do not want to live in a curio, Johannes. This is a sideshow! This is something to scare the children! 'The Floating Pirate City'! I don't want it! I don't want to live in this great bobbing parasite, like some fucking pondskater sucking the victims dry. This isn't a city, Johannes; it's a parochial little village less than a mile wide, and I do not want it.
"I was always going to return to New Crobuzon. I would never wish to see out my days outside it. It's dirty and cruel and difficult and dangerous—particularly for me, particularly now—but it's my home. Nowhere else in the world has the culture, the industry, the population, the thaumaturgy, the languages, the art, the books, the politics, the history … New Crobuzon," she said slowly, "is the greatest city in Bas-Lag."
And coming from her, someone without any illusions about New Crobuzon's brutality, or squalor, or repression, the declamation was far more powerful than if it came from any Parliamentarian.
"And you're telling me," she said finally, "that I've been exiled from my city—for life—because of you?”
― China Miéville, quote from The Scar
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