The Scar (New Crobuzon, #2)

by China Miéville

certain sacralization of the woman. A contempt masked as adoration.

He spoke rapidly then in a language of coughing swallows, as if the dialect itself resented every sound it allowed to escape.

I have knowledge that I cannot use, on a journey I cannot control, the aims of which I do not share or understand, and I am longing for a home I fled, and for a place I have never seen.