The Minority Council Quotes

“My name is Matthew Swift. I’m a sorcerer, the only one in the city who survived Robert Bakker’s purge. I was killed by my teacher’s shadow and my body dissolved into telephone static and all they had left to bury was a bit of blood. Then we came back, and I am we and we are me, and we are the blue electric angels, creatures of the phones and the wires, the gods made from the surplus life you miserable excuse for mortals pour into all things electric. I am the Midnight Mayor, the protector of the city, the guardian of the night, the keeper of the gates, the watcher on the walls. We turned back the death of cities, we were there when Lady Neon died, we drove the creature called Blackout into the shadows at the end of the alleys, we are light, we are life, we are fire and, would you believe it, the word that best describes our condition right now is cranky.

Would you like to see what happens when you make us mad?”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“I hesitated. Truth shot a sly glance at expediency, expediency waggled its eyebrows significantly, truth made a little noise at the back of its throat, and expediency jumped straight on in there.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“I mean, you may not look like much, but on paper you’re really cool until people meet you!”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Londoners have intense loyalties to the areas from which they come. Those born in Croydon will argue that theirs is a borough with access to the green belt, excellent shopping and wide, pleasant streets, while the rest of the city flatly knows that Croydon is a soulless hole whose only redeeming feature is the novelty of the electric tram and a large DIY store with reasonable parking. Likewise, those from Hackney would contend that their borough is vibrant and exciting, instead of crime-ridden and depressed; those from Acton would argue that their suburb is peaceful and gentle instead of soul-destroyingly dull, samey and bleak; and the people of Amersham would proclaim that their town is the ideal combination of leafy politeness and speedy transport links instead of, clearly, the absolute end of the earth. However, no one, not one mind worthy of respect, could defend Willesden Junction as anything but an utter and irredeemable dump.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Lone hero sounds great in the ad, not so good in the picture.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Paranoia and security are only ever a thin line apart.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“People think the wrong things about sewers. They think piss and shit, a sludge of brown. That’s not it. That’s just the scum that skims along the surface, that’s just the loathsome icing on the cake. It’s the cooking fats, the congealed remnants of washed-away meats, the scrubbed-down rotting husks of vegetables, and yesterday’s mashed potatoes. It’s sanitary towels flushed into a toilet prone to blockages, it’s old tissue paper never quite disintegrating, and it’s human hair that tangles like spider silk and doesn’t break. It’s detergent from the washing machine and soap from the dishwasher, it’s baked-bean grease and uneaten leek soup that has grown mould on its surface from being left in a broken fridge. It’s the fat they fast-fried the chips in, and the remains of old rotting onion. It’s pregnancy tests that gave the wrong answer and the condom that split; it’s used nappies and puke and the bleach they tried to use to take away the smell. It’s everything you’ve ever not wanted it to be, running busily away downhill through brick-built tunnels, towards pits of rotating slime or the wide open sea. The mask wasn’t there to stop the smell; that would”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“blindly, without rationale, and with a certainty that was well founded, if poorly judged.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“We’re the only people at the back of this boat who are alone. I thought maybe we could be lonely together.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Let the ceiling split in two, let electricity dance like burning snakes between the gaps, let it writhe and wrap its tendrils around men’s flesh, let them for a moment be seared with blazing light and the earth has opened beneath them and those who did not flee are trapped. Some are impaled on the foundation rods that lanced up from the ground itself—him upon a spike that has passed straight through his belly, pushing him off the ground like a doll [that’s just disgusting].”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Mortals building things the same in the hope that conformity will set them free.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“They seemed to be of that age when things were either one or the other, with no middle ground.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Ley lines exist but, like all of magic, they are formed where life is thickest, and where meaning is imposed by man. Life is magic; magic grows where there is most life.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council

“Because you had to see it, to believe it.”
― Kate Griffin, The Minority Council