Demon Quotes

“How heavy is that day in the mountains when you built a campfire and saw a shooting star? What is the mass of yesterday? How fast is love?”
― John Varley, Demon

“Will have been! A truly stratospheric verb.”
― John Varley, Demon

“The English language was a delight to them, so illogical and fertile and well-suited to their natural desire to confuse, obfuscate, and generally side-step clear meaning whenever possible.”
― John Varley, Demon

“He couldn't think of a good place. At first he thought she hated all living beings equally. Lately he had come to believe he held a special place in her heart, just below rattlesnakes, pederasts, and spirochetes. Definitely a tough place to start from, but determination had always been Conal's strong point.”
― John Varley, Demon

“There were millions of Earth men and women who bought the Earth cultures big lies, and they died just as unhappy as you are now. And I suggest to you that it's a foolish thing.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Workers who complained or died were turned into zombies, so labor unrest was never a problem.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Such a lexicon of tactics.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Gaea would have thought it was a stinking world, had she not remembered that she had created it.”
― John Varley, Demon

“We can make this into a good place.”
― John Varley, Demon

“She looked up at Cirocco, then sat back on her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The hand held a wrench, and was dirty.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Cirocco stood up, facing the light. Her feet left the ground.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Try as you might, it was hard to tell which weapon was real and which was an imposter. And the people of Pandemonium didn’t seem to notice the difference.”
― John Varley, Demon

“There was no way to explain what happened to a human or a Titanide, or a blimp, or anything with a time-bound sense.”
― John Varley, Demon

“He got up shakily. There were little bits of Luther scattered here and there on the platform. Luckily, they weren’t important bits. An ear, a fragment of skull, part of a foot.”
― John Varley, Demon

“All blimps die in fire. It is their destiny. Nothing else can kill them.”
― John Varley, Demon

“He heard a gentle whistling. It did come to them as words. It told of a relationship he could never explain to a human.”
― John Varley, Demon

“He was out of the inner circle, and it pained him, as all he wished to do was serve Gaea.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Her mind was a fragmented thing, but she was used to that, knew how to deal with it.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Gaea fell backwards, and the Universal globe was knocked from its turntable and went rolling down the far side of the wall.”
― John Varley, Demon

“She loves spectacle. It’s what attracted her to movies in the first place. It’s the basic reason she started the war, god help us all. Give her a good one, Rocky, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
― John Varley, Demon

“She was getting tired of movies, if the truth were told. She was tired of that little brat Adam, and that stinking drunk Chris. Most of all she was tired of waiting for Cirocco Jones to show up.”
― John Varley, Demon

“This had all started out as a lot of fun, but she was getting more and more bored with it every day.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Gaea has always been as funny as cancer of the rectum.”
― John Varley, Demon

“He was now sure he would lose in the long run. It was all very well to be set up as Adam’s conscience, but television had always had a louder voice than a child’s conscience-which didn’t exist until someone nurtured it. Chris wasn’t being given a chance.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Once in motion, Nasu was impossible to stop. She barreled through the tunnel like history’s worst Freudian nightmare.”
― John Varley, Demon

“If he’d been a woman, you’d be the happiest person in Gaea now. Since he’s a man, you’re one of the most miserable. It’s because you’ve bought the Coven’s big lie, even though you’re too adult for all that. There were millions of Earth men and women who bought the Earth cultures’ big lies and they died just as unhappy as you are now. And I suggest to you that it’s a foolish thing.”
― John Varley, Demon

“The Wizard, the Captain, the Major…the Demon. Cirocco Jones was all of them, and she was an old friend. But sometimes lately she scared Robin. Seeing her at the big rallies at the stadium, watching the throngs cheer her every word…it reminded her too much of the historical footage of demagogues of the past, the silver-tongued rascals who led their people into disaster. She was a stranger, standing up there, arms raised, drinking the vast approval of the crowds.”
― John Varley, Demon

“One is of air, one is of dream.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Of course I’m cruel,” Gaea muttered, closing her eye again. “There is no possible way for you to get the perspective on my cruelty, though. I’m fify thousand years old, Chris. Cirocco is just over a hundred, and already feels things eating away at her soul. Can you imagine what I must feel?”

“You mean three million, not-“

“Of course. What was I thinking of. You can do my back now, Chris.”
― John Varley, Demon

“Chris did not like to look into her eyes, even from a distance. There was too much ancient pain inside them. Evil, too, much, much evil…but he had started to wonder where evil comes from. Did one just decide to become evil? He doubted it. It must be a slow thing.”
― John Varley, Demon