“We're not robbing him," Skulduggery said." But I'm afraid I have some bad news."
"Is it Deacon?" Francine asked, her eyes wide.
"It is."
"Is he sick?"
"It's a little worse than that."
She gasped. "He's dying?"
"He was briefly dying," said Skulduggery. "Now he's dead.”
“Valkyrie made a face. "Bloody vampires."
Ryan sat forward. "That was a vampire? That guy who looked like an accountant?"
"We don't talk about vampires," Skulduggery warned.
"But it was daytime. How could he have been out during the-"
"We don't talk about vampires!" Valkyrie said sharply.
Ryan shrunk back. "Sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," Skulduggery told him. "Valkyrie used to date a vampire that's all."
"We didn't date ," Valkyrie said immediately.
Skulduggery held a hand up. "I'm not judging."
Valkyrie scowled.”
“The workshop door opened and Skulduggery emerged. "Ryan," he said, "stop leaning on my car.”
“I’ve got good news and bad news for you, Ryan. The bad news is that you’re the only one in the world who can activate the Doomsday Machine, and Foe and his gang are never going to stop coming after you. The good news is that with myself and Valkyrie protecting you, you stand a very good chance of emerging from this relatively unscathed.”
Valkyrie looked at the back of Skulduggery’s head. “You said they’d probably try to cut his hand off.”
“I said relatively,” Skulduggery reminded her.”
“He was so strong,” Francine sobbed. “So proud. So much dignity. How did he die?”
“Wood chipper,” said Valkyrie.”
“Ryan, you're not real. You don't exist... You're Deacon Maybury," Skulduggery said. "You're a hiding place who thinks it's a boy.”
“A news bulletin on the radio speaks of a public ban on spitting, swearing, smoking and queue-jumping during the Olympics. The Four Pests, the campaign has been called, after the Mao-era policy to eradicate sparrows, mosquitoes, flies and rats. Wang remembers Shuxiang telling him how, during her childhood, gangs of children chased sparrows from tree to tree, banging tin trays until the birds fell out of the sky, too exhausted to beat their wings and fly.”
“Rotting in your skin
rotting in your mind
you are rotting in this house
in this house you'll die.”
“He let himself be led into the night, into the forest, into the blind secret wordless, thoughtless country.”
“I remembered the fox. One runs the risk of crying a bit if one allows oneself to be tamed.”
“Harper was also a person who preferred to avoid complications. Like parking tickets, speed restrictions, and red lights – which was why she no longer had a driver’s license.”
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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.