“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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“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from The Writing Life
“So long as there is gold underneath, who cares about the dust on top? Literature! That old whore! We must try to dose her with mercury and pills and clean her out from top to bottom, she has been so ultra-screwed by filthy pricks!”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour
“In fact the "mask" theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in "The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism", and Robert Jackall, in "Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers", refer repeatedly to the "masks" that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces.
Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to "get in the face" of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, quote from Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
“Fixing motives is like fixing blame-the further away from the act you get, the harder it is to single out one thing as having caused it.”
― Russell Banks, quote from The Sweet Hereafter
“La libertad no es un derecho del hombre que concede el cielo, y la libertad de soñar tampoco se adquiere desde el nacimiento: es una capacidad que hay que preservar, una conciencia, sobre todo porque las pesadillas no paran de perturbarla.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
Blood Song
Once Burned
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We'll Always Have Su...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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