Undertow Quotes

“—I’m sorry, but I don’t know any stories.  ”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow: A Novel

“Cricket-Fisher-was starting to prefer her new name. Especially the way Nouel said it, with a little twinkle, as if it were a joke shared.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“The shock of water stretching se virgin brood pouch was like pain. Gourami reeled.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“You think you’re fine. You think you get through it all right. And then you wake up sure the cold sweat on your face is blood, so real you can taste it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“She hadn’t trusted anyone, not since Patience. Not since Moon Morrow’s confidential secretary had turned out to be not so confidential after all.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Quick, ruthless, but not prone to long-term strategy-that was the Charter Trade Company.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“The pain was vast. He lay back, balling his fists against his eyes, and concentrated on breathing. His leg throbbed; the pain paled and ebbed while he outwaited it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, aware of how defensive her body language was and not caring at all.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Every plan had its flow. But sometimes, living in the future was damned cool. Even if she couldn’t get a rocket car.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“He was paying the immemorial price of apprenticeship: things concealed, games of trust.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Machiavelli’s outlook had not been so much simplistic as limited by his times.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Three explosions in three days, and not even one of them had been Closs’s idea.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Whatever her life was now, Cricket had made her own mistakes in the past-was still making them, if André Deschênes was any indication-and frankly, she’d class some of them as mistakes only because she got caught.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Rim had kept secrets from the Core. The Core kept secrets from Rim: no surprises there. One of the stranger benefits of having once been someone else was that the someone she had been knew how much was concealed. And sometimes even had a general idea of what not to ask about in order to ensure everyone’s comfort or continued peace of mind.

Or, in this case, where exactly to shine the light.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“When Morrow called Closs, it was a cause for concern. When she called him at home and didn’t waste time on pleasantries, it was nearly a cause to panic.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“He’s so bad he can be sweet as ice cream every second and nobody forgets for any one of those seconds that he’s the baddest man in the room. That’s what I like. Men who could beat up my dad. They make me feel safe.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“The common factor linking all of my unhappy romances is me.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“She was fashionably thin, the line of her jaw sharp as the detail on a porcelain horse, the tendons in her throat vanishing under the ivory silk collar of her suit.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Bad enough to be here, doing this. Worse to have to stop and think about it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Was it different if you went in knowing you had made the decision to kill? Was it different if you did it in self-defense? In defense of another? In defense of a species?”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Se was not a greatparent. Se did not have the skill of making luck.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“Se companions hadn’t found the captives, or any sign, on the fleeing barge that the Company humen used a village-heart. They had taken Caeti, and se would not leave Caeti in their dry, rough hands. So se had attached self to the humen leader’s heliocopter as it fled the overrun barge. And se clung there, water slashing in se brood pouch, se hand and toefingers wrapped in a deathgrip on wet metal until bone ran with traced flame and digits cramped in claws.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“You aren’t you. You aren’t the you you were this morning. Your consciousness provides a semblance of continuity, but if you’ve been an infinite number between then and now.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“He scampered across the surface of the virtual timestreams, testing them with palps and toetips, the movement of the spider controlled by the fine twitches of his gloved hands.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“The warm night air-her own continued existence shocked her as much as brightness would have if she’d been drowning, and somehow kicked herself into daylight again before the black water could suck her down.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“People had secrets. You lived with it or you didn’t.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“He loved her, and she didn’t love him, but that didn’t mean they had to be assholes about it.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow

“You paid your money and you picked your poison.”
― Elizabeth Bear, Undertow