“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
“Oh, hasn't he told you? The ones before. None of them last, you see. That's the whole point.”
― quote from The Girl Before
“If the ability to make use of experience and draw conclusions decided, we would have forgotten what war is a long time ago. But those whose goal is war have never been held back, nor will be, by experience or analogy.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Blood of Elves
“When a man invents an image that he wants to propagate, that he may even want to substitute for himself, he starts by experimenting, making mistakes, sketching out freaks and other non-viable monsters that he has to tear up unless they disintegrate of their own accord. But the operative image is the one that's left after the person dies or withdraws from the world, as in the case of Socrates, Christ, Saladin, Saint-Just and so on. They succeeded in projecting an image around themselves and into the future. It doesn't matter whether or not the image corresponds to what they were really like: they managed to wrest a powerful image from that reality.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love
“If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That's not empathy, that's a projection.”
― Chris Voss, quote from Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
“Jane wondered...When the girl was not cleaning her suite, which wouldn't take much time, and when she was not making her meals, and when she was not exercising, and when she was not being owned by some visitor, how often did she sit staring into space, alone and silent and still, as if she were a doll abandoned by a child who had moved on from childish things and no longer lover her?”
― Dean Koontz, quote from The Silent Corner
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.
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