“My dad hates umbrellas, said Deeba, swinging her own. When it rains he always says the same thing. 'I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“If you're brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn't, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“...where's the skill in being a hero if you were always destined to do it?”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“I'm Margarita Staples." She bowed in her harness. "Extreme librarian. Bookaneer.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“So...I'm the funny one? I'm the funny sidekick?
.
.
.
That's no way to talk about anyone! To say they're just hangers-on to someone more important.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Were you terrified, Murgatroyd?" Murgatroyd nodded eagerly. "There you go, girl: You're a terrorist. You make me twitchy, and under Article Forty-One of the 2000 Terrorism Bill, that's all I need. Time for some reasonable force, I think.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Yeah, but where’s the skill in being a hero if you were always destined to do it?”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Is it dangerous? Hmm. Well, define 'dangerous.' Is a knife 'dangerous'? Is Russian roulette 'dangerous'? Is arsenic 'dangerous'? ...It really depends on your perspective.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“My job is never boring," Staples said. "There's nuts-and-bolts stuff like getting the tarpaulin over the shaft when it rains, and so in. Cataloging and reshelving. The shelves are in a shocking state. And when you've got everything ever written or lost to keep track of, it's quite a job. And there's fetching books.
"I used to really look forward to requests for books way down in the abyss. We'd all rope up, follow our lines down for miles. The order falls apart a way down but you learn to sniff out class-marks. Sometimes we'd be gone for weeks, fetching volumes.' She spoke with a faraway voice.
"There are risks. Hunters, animals, and accidents. Ropes that snap. Sometimes someone gets separated. Twenty years ago, I was in a group looking for a book someone had requested. I remember, it was called 'Oh, All Right Then': Bartleby Returns. We were led by Ptolemy Yes. He was the man taught me. Best librarian there's ever been, some say.
"Anyway, after weeks of searching, we ran out of food and had to turn back. No one likes it when we fail, so none of us were feeling great.
"We felt that much worse when we realized that we'd lost Ptolemy.
"Some people say he went off deliberately. That he couldn't bear not to find the book. That he's out there still in the Wordhoard Abyss, living off shelf-monkeys, looking. And that he'll be back one day, book in his hand.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Come on then," Deeba said. "We haven't got time to waste. You're not the ones who are going to get forgot in a few days' time if you don't phone home.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“You've met our guards." He gestured at the silent cylindrical guide. "The secret warriors: the binja.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Strictly speaking, she thought, this place was a cross between a forest and a jungle. “This is a jorest,” she said to Hemi. “Yeah,” he said. “No, it’s a fungle.” They grinned.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“A dark-windowed diesel train burst out of the building, close enough to make the bus shake. It helter-skeltered downward into the earth. “Where’s it going?” Zanna said. “Crossing the Odd, to some of the other abcities,” Jones said. “If you’re brave enough to try, you might be able to catch a train from UnLondon to Parisn’t, or No York, or Helsunki, or Lost Angeles, or Sans Francisco, or Hong Gone, or Romeless…It’s a terminus.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t take him for part-ghost—but you’d know he wanted to be somewhere else.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society’s usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“UnLondon would have to look after itself. She wasn’t the Shwazzy. She was just someone. How could just someone be any help, whatever was going on?”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Easiest way is to bend over and say ‘car.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
“Pokud člověka mátlo pobývat v Přízrakově, kde ho obklopovali duchové předchozích forem, ocitnout se uvnitř této budovy mu vyrazilo dech.
Zdálo se, jako by se chodba stahovala a zužovala podle kolotání jejích duchů. Stěny byly ověšené osvědčeními a obrazy, které obklopovaly další v přízračné podobě. Kolem světel visely přízraky holých žárovek a složitých lustrů.
"Myslím, že hodím šavli," řekla Deeba.
"To je ti jenom duchno," poznamenal Hemi. "To se spraví.”
― China Miéville, quote from Un Lun Dun
China Miéville
Born place: in Norwich, England, The United Kingdom
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“where are we going?' I asked.
'I don't know,' he said. 'just driving.'
'But this road doesn't go anywhere,' I told him.
'That doesn't matter.'
'What does?' I asked, after a little while.
'Just that we're on it, dude,' he said.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Less Than Zero
“When you thought about it, it was sort of a blue-eyed wonder that women could love the best of them, let alone the rest of them.”
― Stephen King, quote from Dreamcatcher
“I have suffered into truth (...) Time refines all things that age with time”
― Aeschylus, quote from The Oresteia
“What a noise we'll make among the drab and dull, how we'll...wait, I want more green. I hope I did not imply I only wanted your colors. We can't turn a cold shoulder to green, and blue, and purple, for the sake of all ordered things, how can you dismiss purple? Call [him] back and tell him of my need of purple!”
― Shannon Hale, quote from River Secrets
“We have reason. It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here.”
― James Hilton, quote from Lost Horizon
The Sicilian
Reckoning
The Mist
Everneath
The Power of the Dog
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