Maplecroft Quotes

“Last century’s magic is this year’s science.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Jackson," he mused. "Not a name either one of you was born to."

Lizzie answered, "No. But beyond a certain point, names become accessories. We swap them out as needed, for the sake of peace. You understand?"

"I understand. Though I disagree. Names aren't hats to change a look, or a suit to be swapped at a whim. Words mean things."

"Then we must agree to disagree.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Can it be that ugly and easy?

We crawled primordial from the water, our grand-ancestors times a million generations; we escaped the tides, the sharks, and the leviathans of the deep, only to find ourselves on land -- where we became the things we'd sought to escape, and we invented gods to blame. Not gods of the ocean, for we'd been to the ocean, and seen that the water was empty of the divine. Not gods of the earth, for we have walked up on the dirt, and we are alone here.

So we installed gods in the sky, because we haven't yet eliminated the firmament as a possibility.

Next, I suppose we'll send them into space ...

Over and over, we lift God out of our reach. Over and over, push Him beyond our grasp, yet still we stretch out our fingers and seek to touch Him.

But find nothing.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“As for the prayers, I suppose they can’t hurt. I’ve never found much good in them, I’ll confess that here, though I keep such thoughts private when in public company. Who would confide in a physician who claimed no affiliation with God? I still must feed myself, and keep my house. I still need my patients. But too many people believe with too much conviction in what amounts to, at best, a superstition.
I’ve seen science change a patient’s diagnosis, but I’ve never heard a prayer that changed God’s mind about a damn thing..”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“And if there are gods after all, perhaps we should not struggle so hard to get their attention, if this is the attention they would lavish upon us.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Every affair is a fairy tale or a tragedy.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“She wielded it easily, lightly. She carried it swinging like a baseball bat, only with more poetry to it. It was a frightening thing to watch, this small shadow of billowing grey fabric and sprawling, wild hair splaying out behind her, the axe held at the ready with both hands, poised and prepared.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“(Is this what we fled, when we left the ocean? Did we grow legs so we could run away?)”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“The truth is I never knew him well—only well enough to know that I didn’t wish to know him better. •”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“She collected herself, and rose from the floor. “Until you have a better grasp on what we’re dealing with here, I’d appreciate your immediate proximity.”

I did as she asked. She was the expert, after all.
But what a terrifying thought, that the world’s foremost expert knew only enough to live in horror.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“The distance between an honest Christian mystic and a fortune-teller is sometimes less than half a whisper. Less than a pot of tea or the space between two book covers.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Over and over again, we lift God out of our reach. Over and over, push Him beyond our grasp, yet still we stretch out our fingers and seek to touch Him.

But find nothing.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“There are worse things than minotaurs at the centre.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“I would let the whole town think I’m a madwoman and a murderer, let it scorn and reject me, let its children compose hateful rhymes to be sung whilst jumping rope.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“In my career I’ve had my hands upon more revolting bodies than a layman is likely to encounter in a lifetime of trying. I’ve squeezed boils, soaked my hands in blood and pus, slipped in entrails, swaddled slippery stillborns, and pulled excrement from unwilling bowels by hand.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“I met his eyes because I could not refuse them... they were the color of a storm clashing with a setting sun.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“I almost feel like the specimen is a she. Ridiculous, when addressing a plural entity with no construct of binary gender such as humans ascribe . . . but then again, there’s a three-person God in heaven, or so we are often reminded. And I’ve never heard Him referred to with any pronoun but the masculine. He is God. She is Siphonophore. They both are One, but also Legion. Which is either blasphemy or the utmost truth, and I’m ill-prepared to offer an opinion either way.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Many monsters lose their power to frighten, when they’re dragged out into the morning.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“That sound . . . that sound, it came from his mouth. It was the song of something dying. Something that never did live.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Children and adults are alike--it's not as if we ever outgrow our darker fears. Let's not pretend we're all so reluctant to entertain the unknown.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“but can’t you feel it? Something abominable and atmospheric.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“It’s as if there’s no one at all working the drawbridge between his brain and his mouth.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“Such is the way of things, all order passing into chaos, given time enough.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“But women her age, barely out of their teens and with the whole world before them, they haven’t yet had time to lose the things they love. Every affair is a fairy tale or a tragedy, and either one is fine so long as the story is good. Every love is all or nothing, and even their “nothings” are poetry. They don’t yet know how the years fade and stretch the highs and the lows, wearing them thin, making them vulnerable. They haven’t yet known much of death.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft

“some place to stand and place a lever, there’s nowhere from which to move the world.”
― Cherie Priest, Maplecroft