Tim Pratt > Quotes

“But you know me-I'm an information magpie, always interested in shiny bits of intel. I've never gotten in trouble because of knowing too much.”
― T.A. Pratt, Blood Engines

“A body is a body." Viscarro shrugged his bony shoulders. "Dead, alive, alive, dead. I fail to see the importance of the distinction."
Yeah? So you'd just as soon fuck a living person as a dead one? What's the point of the distinction? Oh, right-one's normal, and one's called necrophilia."
Viscarro sighed. "Touche, I suppose.”
― T.A. Pratt

“B looked down the shaft, at a metal ladder and darkness beyond. "Me first?"
Of course. You're the apprentice, so you always go first into the unknown. If anyone's going to be eaten by a grue, it should be you."
Tough job. But at least the hours are terrible.”
― T.A. Pratt, Spell Games

“All water has been everywhere, Bekah. What flows from your faucet was once frozen inside a glacier, and squeezed by unimaginable pressures at the bottom of the deepest sea, and rippling in a lightless lake in a cavern no living thing has ever touched. Also, it has almost certainly been inside a dinosaur. All water is one water, and all water remembers the past.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“Sure, movies can be a way to hide from life, but shit, sometimes you NEED to hide from life, to see a better life on the screen, to know life can be better than it is, or to see a worse life and realize how good you have it. Movies taught me not to settle for less.”
― Tim Pratt, Impossible Dreams

“You ask for happiness, Ms. Stuart. Certainly, that’s what everyone wants–Aristotle said happiness is the ultimate goal of all people, and that the desire for wealth and fame and power are all just paths to happiness. And yet…happiness…it’s a bit abstract, isn’t it? As the front door says, I deal in antiquities and tangibles. Which is not to say I can’t cope with more aspirational requests–if you asked for the aforementioned wealth or power, or for youth, or beauty, or inspiration, I have items that can grant all those wishes. But happiness… Can you be a bit more specific? Can you tell me what would make you happy?”
― Tim Pratt, Antiquities and Tangibles and Other Stories

“After several stops, and a dark journey through the tunnel under the bay, B stood up and said, “This is it.” They stepped off the train and took an escalator up a level, into a domed area, and then exited the train station. As always when Marla emerged from an underground space into the light, she felt a sense of new possibilities, as if she’d returned from the underworld and brought back secrets. There was power even in symbolic journeys.”
― Tim Pratt, Blood Engines

“The loss of memory is the loss of identity, Rebekah. If you can’t remember who you are, you are at risk of becoming someone else.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“we went over to one of my favorite pizza places for a few slices of deep-dish, which Trey appallingly did not appreciate: “This isn’t pizza. This is basically lasagna with no noodles.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“You know that saying about how fools rush in where wise men fear to tread? Ashok rushes in where fools won’t even go.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“I like plans. They create a comforting illusion of sanity and order.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“Everything is somebody’s fetish.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“semihippie sorta-kinda-artists who cobble together a living one way or another.” I bristled a touch. “I’m a sorta-kinda-artist, you know.” “Really? You don’t strike me as a sorta-kinda woman, Bekah. Seems like you’d go all out.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“There are different kinds of people in this world. Some people, if they stepped outside and saw a glowing portal hovering in their yard—a shimmering doorway that led to another world where the sky is the color of emeralds and crystal palaces shimmer in the distance—they would go right back inside the house and lock the door and pray for the freaky thing to go away. Other people would grab a couple of power bards, a bottle of water, and a baseball bat for self-defense and step on through, because the regret of wondering what might have been would tear them to pieces eventually if they did anything else. Turns out I'm the kind of girl who has a hard time turning her back on what might be.”
― Tim Pratt

“Drake always thinks the glass is half full. Me, I think the glass is half full of poison.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“Puns are the E. coli of humor,”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“If we manage to cheat death, we’ll give death another sporting chance.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“If there is one thing I've learned from the years in the criminal enterprises, it's that anyone can do almost anything to anybody else for any reason, and villainy and treachery doesn't have a thing to do with race, sex, species, or creed.”
― Tim Pratt, Reign of Stars

“I used to make a nest in the closet of my bedroom with pillows and blankets and a flashlight and a book. My own tiny world, sacred and inviolate, where I could reign entirely at my own whim and discretion.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“H. P. Lovecraft wrote that the most merciful thing about the human mind is its inability to correlate all its contents,”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“the counters and center island were crammed with mason jars and novelty saltshakers and cookie jars in the shapes of cats, blimps, pumpkins, frogs, robots, potbellied demons, and other things.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“Contrails. Also helicopters. Skydivers. Basically everything”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“I don’t want awesome powers. They come with awesome responsibilities, and those suck.”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“He was a bitter little misanthrope but good with a spanner.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“Marla had always been better at tearing things apart, at least in a physical level (though she liked to think she was good at building more theoretical things, like the complex structure of loyalty, fear, and obligation that kept things running back home).”
― Tim Pratt, Blood Engines

“A completely unknown species built this thing, so long ago your ancestors weren’t even in jail yet,” Thales said. “Those creatures made this ship, they traveled in it, they abandoned it or wrecked it, and some wandering idiots found it millennia later and towed it back here because they thought it might be worth a credit or two. It all makes you feel insignificant, doesn’t it?”
“I guess we are pretty small, measured against the vastness of everything,” Felix agreed.
“What?” Thales said. “No. I mean, it must make you feel insignificant. Which you are. I’m not insignificant. I’m the man who invented wormhole technology. No one in the galaxy will ever forget my name, unlike the pathetic fools who built this thing. I was musing on my own immortal greatness, captain. Do try to keep up.”
― Tim Pratt, The Fractured Void

“She felt either apathy or hostility toward almost everyone, and she was happy that way.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“You think we’re hiding our secret mastery of the galaxy. In reality, we’re hiding something else. Something much worse.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars

“He gestured at himself. “You see this, Bekah? This whole package here? It contains multitudes.” “I knew you were full of something.” “Iron”
― Tim Pratt, Heirs of Grace

“Come have a drink with me?” “Isn’t it early for that?” Callie shrugged. “We have a saying: ‘It’s always five o’clock in space.”
― Tim Pratt, The Wrong Stars