Miquel Codony > Miquel's Quotes

“The words were low, more shape than breath.”
― Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam

“May I know your name, sir?"
The smile rearranged his face under the terrible scars. "Nezahualcoyotl. Michel Nezahualcoyotl. Charmed.”
― Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam

“I’m not studying the heroes who lead navies—and armies—and win wars. I’m studying ordinary people who you wouldn’t expect to be heroic, but who, when there’s a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I’m going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common.”
― Connie Willis, Blackout

“You know," he said, "every time a vampire says he doesn't believe in lycanthropes, a werewolf bursts into flames.”
― Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam

“This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood—and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Dust

“Her neural pattern must remain intact for the time being, as it was still necessary that she stay herself. Changes to her identity would eventually become inevitable, but those would have to wait until she no longer needed the cloak of who she was.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Chill

“You lack the requisite spine and testicular fortitude to study under me.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“The older he got, the simpler the world was revealed to be.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Seven for a Secret

“An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo!”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“I brought her flowers one dusky Tuesday evening when the light was perfect. I pointed out the irony of that romantic old tradition— the severed genitalia of another species, offered as a precopulatory bribe—and then I recited my story just as we were about to fuck.

To this day, I still don't know what went wrong.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“A succubus on the set. Strike that, the health-conscious kid sister made it two… succubuses. Succubusees? Succubi? Stupid Latin correspondence course.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“Sometimes I forget how much I like riding the bike."

Most chicks do," I said. "Roar of the engine and so on."

Murphy's blue eyes glittered with annoyance and anticipation. "Pig. You really enjoy dropping all women together in the same demographic, don't you?"

It's not my fault all women like motorcycles, Murph. They're basically huge vibrators. With wheels.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites

“On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.”
― Jim Butcher, Dead Beat

“I will learn fifteen types of wind and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores.”
― Claire Keegan, Antarctica

“You don’t let them knock you out, you make them knock you out. You make them break their fucking hands knocking you out, you let them know that they’ve been in a fight, you give them something to remember you by every time they look in a mirror.”
― Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog

“A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive, popped it on the back of his three-man yacht, and turned it on. With a good scope, you could still see his ship going at a marginal percentage of the speed of light, heading out into the big empty. The best, longest funeral in the history of mankind. Fortunately, he’d left the plans on his home computer. The Epstein Drive hadn’t given humanity the stars, but it had delivered the planets.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
― Albert Einstein

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
― Stephen King

“Never laugh at live dragons.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn’t supposed to happen after the glorious last stand. I saved the world, or I think I did, and look, the world is still here, with sunsets and interlibrary loans. And it doesn’t care about me any more than the Shire cared about Frodo.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

“The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"
It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.
This is it: "Nothing.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman

“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
― John Cheever

“That's one of the things Yardem used to tell me that actually made sense. He said that you don't go through grief like it was a chore to be done. You can't push and get finished quicker. The best you can do is change the way you always do, and the time comes when you aren't the same person who was in pain.”
― Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path

“I’m saying there is evil in the world,” Master Kit said, hefting the box on his hip, “and doubt is the weapon that guards against it.”
― Daniel Abraham, The Dragon's Path

“Style is not neutral; it gives moral directions.”
― Martin Amis