Pacific Fire Quotes

“We wanted you to achieve the greatest osteomancy you were capable of."
"What if I wanted to be a professional baseball player?"
"Then we would have found you the best coaches and bought you a really good mitt. Did you want to be a professional baseball player?"
"Naw. I got hit in the eye with a ball once and set it on fire.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“You know what happens when you use people, Mom? They get used up.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Okay, how do we submerge?” he asked. Em stared blankly at him. “How should I know?” “I thought you said you knew how to work a sub.” “When did I say that?” “You implied it.” “With my silence on the subject?”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“How’s your throwing arm?” “I throw like a girl,” Em said. “By which I mean with strength and accuracy.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“The guard had brought two bigger friends with him. They loomed at Moth, but Moth was simply the best loomer Daniel had ever met, and he made them look ridiculous.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Oh, please,” she said. “You’re totally a virgin.” “Not technically speaking, I’m not.” He wished he could see her roll her eyes. “Technically?” “I think the amount of time I spend thinking about sex ought to count for something.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“It was 1956. Natural causes. I mean, she got hit by a tomato truck. But in a natural way. She wasn’t murdered for her bones.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“I don’t have a key to the safe, man, just what’s in the drawer, seriously, just take it.” Sam lifted the receiver. “I’m not going to rob … Oh, whatever. Yeah, give me what’s in the drawer.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Good or bad, luck is shorthand for what happens when intention meets chaos.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“This one's for you, Mom. I just want to make sure I've got this straight: You're trading Paul's life in exchange for a living dragon?"
She took a small sip of wine. "I'm not trading anything. This is Paul's project. He's been working on it for his entire adult life."
"But you're still letting him jump off a cliff in an act of lunatic self-immolation." He turned to Paul. "That's a metaphor.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Shouldn't you be supervising this insane endeavor?" Daniel, asked him.
"I am," he said, tapping his forehead enigmatically. "But there's not much to do at this point. The pot's on the stove and just needs to climb to the right temperature. That's a metaphor.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Daniel liked the way Paul described immensely complicated osteomantic processes without pomp. Then he realized why he liked it: it reminded him of his father. And then he stopped liking it.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“You must have more questions," Paul said.
"Only very sensitive, personal ones.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“So here I am, thought Daniel, having beer with my no-longer-brain-damaged, genius golem-brother. Oh, life.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“Part of it was because he had sort of fallen in love with her. Just as he had fallen in love with Valerie at the Salton Sea. As he had fallen for any number of girls with whom he'd had momentary contact, because his heart was the vacuum which nature abhorred.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“We're going to have to strong arm this," Em whispered. "And I'm using 'strong arm' as a euphemism for suicide.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“The hound leaned back in the booth, relaxed. "Take your time. You're not going anywhere. I didn't bring cannon fodder this time. I brought Bennie."
The thin man carried a certain nonspecific lethal aspect about him.
"Who's Bennie?" Sam asked.
"Bennie's my gun. Say hello, Bennie."
Bennie made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“The door opened. The guard had brought two bigger friends with him. They loomed at Moth, but Moth was simply the best loomer Daniel had ever met, and he made them look ridiculous.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire

“He looked like a shlub, but he gave off smells of smilodon and short-faced cave bear and dire wolf and griffin. He was no shlub.”
― Greg Van Eekhout, Pacific Fire