Quotes from The Emperor's Code

Gordon Korman ·  190 pages

Rating: (38.5K votes)


“Oh, no-" They weren't even on the runway, and Jonah's father was already immersed in his BlackBerry. "Remember those 'Live Large with the Wiz Generation' posters? Well, guess how that translates into Chinese- 'Jonah Wizard Makes Your Ancestors Fat'.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“In our family, you don't get a childhood. We're too busy trying to dominate the world.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“Why can't you just lie and cheat like the others?" Dan snapped. "Can't you just see that's better than being nice one minute and then turning around and selling us out? It may be very Cahill, but it stinks! Grace had a saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, I'll conk you with this pet carrier!”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“You don't get Billie Joe Armstrong's autograph on your forehead without following your instincts.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“The Bombyx mori caterpillar," her brother supplied, thinking of snack time at the Shaolin Temple. "It tastes like chicken.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code



“During construction, when a worker died, his body was built right into the Wall itself. No one knew how many corpses lay within the stone and mortar, but some estimates ran as high as three million souls.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“It’s like living your whole life without ever looking in a mirror, Amy thought, and suddenly you see your reflection, and you’re a monster.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


“fact, it’s just crazy enough to be the kind of thing that actually happens in your family. A regular hiding place isn’t good enough for you Froot Loops; you have to use Mount Everest!”
― Gordon Korman, quote from The Emperor's Code


About the author

Gordon Korman
Born place: in Montreal, Canada
Born date October 23, 1963
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“So it was that the Red Tower put into production its new, more terrible and perplexing, line of unique novelty items. Among the objects and constructions now manufactured were several of an almost innocent nature. These included tiny, delicate cameos that were heavier than their size would suggest, far heavier, and lockets whose shiny outer surface flipped open to reveal a black reverberant abyss inside, a deep blackness roaring with echoes. Along the same lines was a series of lifelike replicas of internal organs and physiological structures, many of them evidencing an advanced stages of disease and all of them displeasingly warm and soft to the touch. There was a fake disembodied hand on which fingernails would grow several inches overnight and insistently grew back should one attempt to clip them. Numerous natural objects, mostly bulbous gourds, were designed to produce a long, deafening scream whenever they were picked up or otherwise disturbed in their vegetable stillness. Less scrutable were such things as hardened globs of lava into whose rough, igneous forms were sent a pair of rheumy eyes that perpetually shifted their gaze from side to side like a relentless pendulum. And there was also a humble piece of cement, a fragment broken away from any street or sidewalk, that left a most intractable stain, greasy and green, on whatever surface it was placed. But such fairly simple items were eventually followed, and ultimately replaced, by more articulated objects and constructions. One example of this complex type of novelty item was an ornate music box that, when opened, emitted a brief gurgling or sucking sound in emulation of a dying individual's death rattle. Another product manufactured in great quantity at the Red Tower was a pocket watch in a gold casing which opened to reveal a curious timepiece whose numerals were represented by tiny quivering insects while the circling 'hands' were reptilian tongues, slender and pink. But these examples hardly begin to hint at the range of goods that came from the factory during its novelty phase of production. I should at least mention the exotic carpets woven with intricate abstract patterns that, when focused upon for a certain length of time, composed themselves into fleeting phantasmagoric scenes of a kind which might pass through a fever-stricken or even permanently damaged brain.”
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