The Voyage of the Basilisk Quotes

“I have never attempted to hide that I have had two husbands in my life.
I have, however, neglected to mention that in between them, I had a wife.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“This will sound peculiar, I know. But this love I have for dragons, my compulsion to understand them ... I have thought of it before as though there were a dragon within me. A part of my spirit. I do not believe it is true in any mystical sense, of course; I am as human as you are. But in the metaphorical sense, yes. 'Dragon-spirited' is a good a term for me as any."

He listened to this in silence, his expression settled into the grave lines it assumed when he was deep in thought. "Do you believe you are neither male nor female?"

I almost gave a malapert answer, but caught myself in time. We had an established habit of intellectual debate, and I valued it; I would not discard it now.

"So long as my society refuses to admit of a concept of femininity that allows for such things," I said, "then one could indeed say that I stand in between.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“I find that respectability grows wearisome after a time, when one is accustomed to being a disgrace.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“That should be my epitaph when I die 'she did not have to do it'.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Jake pried the head open, giving me a look when I warned him not to cut himself on the teeth. It is a look I think all children master at about his age—the one that insists the looker needs no warning while, by its very confidence, convincing the one looked at that the warning was very necessary indeed.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“It's a wonderful feeling to have one's brain stretched and tested, to know both that one has knowledge, and that one is gaining more.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“The lack of a husband was, for some applicants, a selling point. I imagine many of my readers are aware of the awkward position in which governesses often find themselves -- or, rather, the awkward position into which their male employers often put them, for it does no one any service to pretend this happens by some natural and inexorable process, devoid of connection with anyone's behaviour.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Good manners warred with curiosity, and lost.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“I had rather face wild beasts and diseases than the perils of civilization."
There is a proverb, which Tom was kind enough not to voice: be careful what you wish for. Unfortunately, not only did I get it, but so did those around me.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Contrary to popular assumption, going on an expedition around the world is not merely a matter of obtaining a ship and charting a course. There are visas to be considered, and bureaucracy to navigate when those visas fail to arrive in time, expire too soon, or meet with blank stares on the receiving end. The politics of nations and their economic markets may interfere with your journey. In short, you may spend an appalling amount of time mired in stuffy little offices, trying to get permission to be where you are.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Will there not be any scandal if she marries *me*?" I asked -- not quite believing that living in pseudo-wedlock with a half-human foreign transvestite was any improvement over spinsterhood.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“It is remarkable what children will accept as normal, especially when their experiences have been sufficiently broad.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“When I finally did confront Mr. Arcott, after my return to Falchester, he had the cheek to try and argue that his intellectual thievery had been a compliment and a favor. After all, it meant my work was good enough to be accepted into ibn Khattusi's series -- but of course they never would have taken a submission from a woman, so he submitted it on my behalf. What I said in reply is not fit to be printed here, as by then I had spent a good deal of time in the company of sailors, and had at my disposal a vocabulary not commonly available to ladies of quality.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Miriam snorted. It was not a very ladylike snort. She was the sort of woman one expected to find tramping the countryside in tweeds with a gun under her arm and a bulldog at her side, probably one of her own breeding.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“At no point did I form the conscious intention of founding an ad hoc university in my sitting room. It happened, as it were, by accident.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Readers of these memoirs, know that I have never been very religious. I am not ashamed of this fact. I have endeavoured to be a good woman nonetheless, and to do good for those around me.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“(where the more distant phrasing can lend a veneer of respectability to the otherwise prurient-seeming habit of a naturalist spying on other creatures’ intimate lives).”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“Jake shrugged, in the way that only nine-year-old children can manage -- and usually male children at that, girls not being permitted the same kind of insouciance.”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk

“We debated this point until the skull was clear of the bulk of its flesh. As I began sketching again, he asked me, “What do you think? Taxonomically.” “It’s difficult,” I admitted. By then my hand was capable of going about its work without demanding all of my attention; I could ponder issues of classification at the same time. “The dentition bears some similarities to those reported or observed in other breeds, at least in number and disposition of teeth … though of course baleen plates are not a usual feature. The vertebrae certainly pose a problem. This creature has quite a lot of them, and we do not usually consider animals to be close cousins who differ so greatly in such a fundamental characteristic.” Tom nodded, wiping his hands clean—or at least less filthy—with a cloth. “Not to mention the utter lack of hind limbs. I saw nothing in the dissection, not even anything vestigial. The closest thing it has to forelimbs are some rather inadequate fins.” “And yet there are similarities. The generally reptilian appearance, and more significantly, the degradation of the bones.” I thought of the six criteria customarily used to distinguish “true dragons” from draconic creatures: quadripedalism, flight-capable wings, a ruff or fan behind the skull, bones frangible after death, oviparity, and extraordinary breath. We might, if we were very generous, count the serpent’s supraorbital tendrils (presuming it had once possessed them) as the ruff, and Tom had just confirmed that the creatures laid eggs. Together with the bones—which decayed more slowly than those of terrestrial dragons, but did become frangible quite rapidly—that made three of six. But was there any significance to the distinction between “true dragons” and their mere cousins? What if there was only one characteristic that mattered?”
― Marie Brennan, The Voyage of the Basilisk