Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories Quotes

“Others might find her intimidating, but Weyland Smith wore the promise-ring of Ahun the Valkyrie. No witch could mortify him. Not even one who kept Herdrún-who dined on the leaves of the World Ash-as a mulch goat.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“The U.S.A. was outraged, and loudly said so to everyone, whether they would listen or not. But there wasn’t much America could do about it, having sacrificed our space program on the altars of economic necessity and eternal war.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Sanchez has always heard he’s a good cop, maybe even a decent man. The latter’s more common than the former; power breeds abuse.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Nobody wants to know when something horrible is about to take place.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Grownups didn’t usually say they wouldn’t be angry unless they were secretly angry and trying not to show it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“When you leave people to fend for themselves, the predators come out.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Something about the wryness of his tone, as if what he’s just said is a confidence rather than a blatant misdirection, makes her want to answer. That’s why they call him the Confessor. She can identify the confiding tones even when she feels it working on her.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Word of mouth between the agencies that have employed her-the personal recommendation-is the only currency that counts.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“The simple mechanics of all of it-the movement of muscle under skin-don’t fill up the empty ache inside of her.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“I turn garbage into bronze, the harpy says. I turn rot into strength. If you come with me, you would have to be like me.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“You only want me because my blood is rotten. You only want me because I got thrown away.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Your name is Darkness. You told me. You said you wanted me, Celaeno.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“You are human, and if you stay human your loneliness will pass, one way or the other. If you come with me, it’s yours. Forever.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Wouldn’t it be awful to have wings that didn’t work? Wouldn’t it be worse to have wings that do work, and not be able to use them?”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“I wonder if the harpy’s stuck in that alley. I wonder if it’s too proud to ask for help.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“It’s dark here behind the dumpster.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“I’m sallow-Mama Alice says olive-and I have straight black hair and crooked teeth and no real chin, which is okay because I’ve already decided nobody’s ever going to kiss me.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“How many Annie Webbers are there? How long before I meet them all?”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Jefferson could be profoundly convincing, when he cared to, and having used that talent for her own ends Mrs. Adams knew the truth of it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Allowing himself to be swallowed was the easiest way to beach and kill the monster, which for humane reasons must be dead before the next stage of their plan.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“They are the last creatures in the universe, he and she and the shark. The real world, outside, is running down, and the world they inhabit is a false, constructed world.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“It was unlikely he would set a conducive tone with the museum’s staff by eating a few as a prelude to a conversation.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Orm the Beautiful’s tail-tip twitched with frustrated instinct, and he was obliged to stand on three legs and elaborately clean off-side fore talons for several moments before he regained enough self-possession to settle his wings and ignore the scurrying morsels.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Dragons are not specifically disallowed in the airspace over Washington, D.C., but it must be said that Orm the Beautiful’s presenece there was heartily discouraged. Nevertheless, he persevered, holding his flame and the lash of his wings, and succeeded in landing in the National Mall without destroying any of the attacking aircraft.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“The mother-cave was full of the corpses of dragons, a chain of song and memory stretching aeons. The Chord was rich in voices.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“With the man and their machines came memory.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“He settled among their entwined song, added his notes to the chords, offered harmony.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“When he was done, he lay down among his treasures, his beloveds, under the mountain, and his thoughts were dragonish.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“Orm the Beautiful sang in his sleep, to his brothers and sisters, as the sea sings to itself. He would never die. But neither could he live much longer.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories

“We’re here,” Ferron said to the ancient light that spilled across the sky and did not pierce the shadow into which she descended. As her colleagues turned and stared, she repeated the words, like a mantra. “We’re here too! And we heard you.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Shoggoths in Bloom and Other Stories