Jean > Jean's Quotes

“The word spread.
It began with the techno-literates: young summoners who couldn’t quite get their containment circles right and who had fallen back on Facebook to keep themselves occupied while the sacred incense was cooked in their mum’s microwaves; eager diviners who scoured the internet for clues as to the future of tomorrow, and who read the truth of things in the static at the corners of the screen; bored vampires who knew that it was too early to go out and hunt, too late still to be in the coffin. The message was tweeted and texted onwards, sent out through the busy wires of the city, from laptop to PC, PC to Mac, from mobile phones the size of old breeze blocks through to palm-held devices that not only received your mail, but regarded it as their privilege to sort it into colour-coordinated categories for your consideration. The word was whispered between the statues that sat on the imperial buildings of Kingsway, carried in the scuttling of the rats beneath the city streets, flashed from TV screen to TV screen in the flickering windows of the shuttered electronics stores, watched over by beggars and security cameras, and the message said:
We are Magicals Anonymous.
We are going to save the city.”
― Kate Griffin, Stray Souls

“I don't put up with being messed around, and I don't suffer fools gladly. The short version of that is that I'm a bitch. Trust me, I can provide character references.”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

“The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and you're fussing that he's tied you to the tracks with the wrong kind of rope.”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

“The story is always better than your ability to write it.”
― Robin McKinley

“It is a rose planted in your heart, and as it's thorns tear you, so does it thrive and flower”
― Sarah Monette, The Mirador

“Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.”
― George Carlin

“Grumph let out a harrumph, which indicated either that he was unharmed and waiting patiently for a new opportunity to arise, or that a sparrow had shit in his porridge.”
― Drew Hayes, NPCs

“Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.”
― Brian W. Aldiss

“all gods were like that: the knife behind the smile, the drop of poison in the honey jar. They liked to bind you to them, make you dance on razorblades.”
― Liz Williams

“By keeping the price of treatment drugs artificially high, and making sure that only those who can afford it have the opportunity of a cure, we're actually supporting the work that the Ministry of Epidemics does. I mean, look at Africa and our liaison with the Underworld there.”
― Liz Williams, Snake Agent

“Typical of Hell, thought Chen: overdone and ostentatious and overwhelming, designed to cow an already beaten populace.
"Wow" he said. The demon grinned sympathetically.
"It is a bit excessive, isn't it?"
"Who does it belong to?"
"My employer is the First Lord of Banking. Head of the Ministry of Wealth.”
― Liz Williams, Snake Agent

“The whole justification for having such a bureaucratic system in the first place is so that balance is maintained, and so that one institution doesn't benefit at the expense of all others. Imagine the chaos that would ensue on Earth and in Hell if the Ministry of War were perpetually triumphant! Humans would be decimated and half of Hell would be out of a job.”
― Liz Williams

“Now our world is at the present time firmly in the grip of a mechanical monster, whose head - if you want to call it that - is the World Engineer's Complex. That monster is opposed to us and can keep all too good a tab on us through every purchase we make with our credit numbers, every time we use the public transportation or eat a meal or rent a place to live.”
― Gordon R. Dickson, Necromancer

“Now she realized that she was not peering at a so-dark-blue-it-looked-black ocean, but rather she was looking straight through miles of incredibly clear water at something enormous and black in its nethermost depths. Maybe it was the bottom--so deep that not even light could touch it.

And yet, down in those impossible depths, she thought she could see tiny lights sparkling. She stared uncertainly at the tiny glimmerings. They seemed almost like scattered grains of sand lit from within; in some places they clustered like colonies, faint and twinkling.

Like stars...”
― Fuyumi Ono, The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow

“This is less of a 'the king needs a reason' thing and more of a 'the king loves burning shit and killing people' thing," Eric corrected.”
― Drew Hayes, NPCs

“Voters, like history, are under no obligation to make sense.”
― Evan Mandery, First Contact-Or, It's Later Than You Think

“You believe in God?" demanded Billy Karma.

"I believe in thirty-seven separate and distinct gods," answered Argyle proudly. "That puts me thirty-six ahead of you."

"It makes you a pagan."

"It makes you a man of limited vision," said Argyle.”
― Mike Resnick, The Outpost

“Just when you’ve squared up to the solemn realisation that life is a bitch, it turns round and does something nice, just to confuse you. - Emily Spitzer, The Better Mousetrap”
― Tom Holt

“Telling lies is a bit like tiling bathrooms - if you don't know how to do it properly, it's best not to try.”
― Tom Holt, Falling Sideways