“Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured would be the end of the game.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“It’s human nature to tear one another apart. Be glad you come from such a successful line of killers.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Crew up, Nailer!" Lucky Girl shouted. "You think I'm going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank?”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Family. It was just a word…Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant…It was a thing everyone had an opinion about—that it was all you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn’t more reliable than marriages or friendships…maybe less…The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Her whispering lips brushed his ear.
She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God...she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum Karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering...
He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“You're afraid to gamble even when you're already dead”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“She was too smart for his own good.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“We waste all our money throwing dice, trying to get close to Luck, trying to get the big win... To help us find something we can keep for ourselves.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“It was one of those things everyone had an opinion about—that it was what you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was always there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of those words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and think they could get away with it. Family wasn’t any more reliable than marriages or friendships or blood-sworn crew, and maybe less.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“That’s what the pig in the pen says when his brother gets knifed for dinner.” He shrugged. “You’re still in the pen. Still gonna die.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Half-men don’t fight like people. More like hurricanes.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Family wasn’t any more reliable than marriages or friendships or blood-sworn crew, and maybe less.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“He was going to drown, but hey, he could read.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
“Blood is not destiny, no matter what others may believe.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, quote from Ship Breaker
Paolo Bacigalupi
Born place: The United States
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“Sólo entonces caí en la cuenta de que los vecinos de asiento en los aviones, al igual que los matrimonios viejos, no se dan los buenos días al despertar. Tampoco ella.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims
“I’ll support whatever you decide. I’ll
help you any way I can. What’s mine is
yours, okay? If you need something, I’ll make sure you have it, however I have to get it. -- Jason Dorsey”
― Jasinda Wilder, quote from Falling into Us
“We are all pretenders in life, finding a patch of humanity that we relate to, and then embrace it. We come straight down the birth canal and our parents start telling us who to be, simply by being themselves. We see their lives, their cars, the way they interact, the rules they set, and the foundations for our own lives are laid. And when our parents aren’t molding us, our situations are. We are all sheep, who get jobs, and have babies, and diet, and try to carve something special out for ourselves using the broken hearts, and bored minds, and scathed souls life delivered to us. And it’s all been done before, every bit of suffering, every joy.
And the minute you realize that we are all pretenders is the minute everything stops intimidating you: punishment, and failure, and death. Even people. There is nothing so ingenious about another human who has pretended well. They are, in fact, just another soul, perhaps more clever, better at failing than you are. But not worth a second of intimidation.”
― Tarryn Fisher, quote from Marrow
“What I know now, my son: Evil begets evil. It grows. It transmutes, so that sometimes you cannot see that the evil in the world began as the evil in your own home. I'm sorry you have suffered. I'm sorry for the way your suffering casts a shadow over your life, over the woman you have yet to marry, the children you have yet to have.”
― Yaa Gyasi, quote from Homegoing
“For some crime committed by my ancestors in the dark and forgotten days, I came into the world already tarred and feathered. With shyness. It hurts terribly -- every bit as much as hot tar choking every pore -- and I wish I could be rid of it. But it hurts a lot less than having someone try and peel the shyness off. That's like being flayed alive.”
― Geraldine McCaughrean, quote from The White Darkness
The Shock of the New
Shakespeare: The Wor...
Time of Contempt
Ghost
Broken Verses
Still MeBookQuoters 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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