Vertigo Quotes

“You’re covered in blood again.”

“I really am.”

“Why are you always covered in blood when I wake up after being unconscious?”
“Usually for the same reason you were unconscious, I think.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“She burst into her hotel room pulling her blouse over her head with one hand while she yanked her shoes off with the other.

No way was she going to face an alien invasion in heels and silk.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of his own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own.

To his dismay, she didn’t fall. People so small as her always fell.

No tears pooled in her eyes; instead they flared golden amber as she rubbed her jaw and pushed off the wall to stand rigid straight. A peculiar smile danced across her lips as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth and down her chin.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“She didn’t want to be the savior of humanity. She never had. She didn’t want to be the vanguard—of destruction or salvation. What she had really wanted was to be a girl whose father lived to show her the stars.

Instead she had been left to wander them alone. Until she discovered someone who saw the stars as she did.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Time slowed as metal shards enveloped her like shattered glass. None pierced her of course, but it seemed as though she might be able to reach out and pluck one from the sky.

She settled for stretching out an imagined hand, palm upturned, and letting a shard fall through it untouched like the ghost she had become.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Individuals reacted in any number of ways to extreme stress and, relatedly, to impending death.

A non-negligible percentage of people reacted in a manner which could be summed up by, ‘Screw it, I’m going out in style!”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew they were probably watching. They watched everything, after all.

Let them watch. Let them see what it meant to be human. To live.

Let them see what it meant to love, and be loved in return.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“She thought he might have said her name, but it was background radiation accompanying the hum in her ears and the symphony in her head—

—a song of quantum mechanics and trajectory calculations and astroscience physics and where to go, where to go, where to…”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“The Artificial’s speech pattern was an idiosyncratic mix of awkward and colloquial. It was unexpectedly endearing. “I just have good instincts. Mostly I love being in space.”

But you are not ‘in’ space. You are in your starship and your starship is in space. It is not so different than being on a planet.

“Oh, Valkyrie, you have no idea.”

Tell me then.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“We—humanity—didn’t come this far by being afraid. Explorers and visionaries have willingly headed off to certain death for thousands of years and by doing so brought us to where we are today. No one has ever told us ‘no’ and succeeded in making it stick for long.

We accede to these aliens’ demands and we’ll wither away. It may take centuries or even millennia, but we’ll be so busy cowering in fear we’ll forget to move forward.

I say we fight.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“He was terrified he was making the wrong choice. He relied on his instincts in his work but now he didn’t dare trust them. The wound of betrayal still burned raw in his chest and another cut might be the killing blow.

But it was the end of the world and there may be no more second chances.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“If humanity is annihilated because we were too busy squabbling with one another to manage a proper stand, we probably deserve the annihilation.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“God, she was beautiful. Hair a tangled mess, clothes torn, lips pale and swollen, skin streaked in dirt. And she was so damn beautiful and flawed and perfect.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“You’re insane.”

“It’ll work.”

“Which does not alter the fact that you are insane.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“She settled back in the chair and draped one leg casually over the other, her hands coming to rest together on her knee.

“Arrest me. Torture me. Parade me about in the public square. You will have your prize catch. And you will lose everything.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“So that’s why I say ‘never have anything you can’t walk away from.’ Especially a woman. For them, because this is a dangerous life we lead and you never know if or when it will blow back on those close to you."

"And for you, because trust me when I tell you there exists no greater perdition than the guilt of causing the death of someone you love.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Good luck with the aliens, and if we survive this feel free to look me up on your next vacation.”

“Good luck with the aliens? You are such a prick.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two

“They flew high above savanna grassland. The sky was the deep cornflower blue of a sunny late afternoon on Earth…exactly the color of a sunny late afternoon on Earth.

Only there was no sun. Whatever was lighting this planet, it wasn’t a star.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“If her daughter’s ship had been disintegrated in space there would never be evidence of it, never an answer to what had happened to her.

If she stopped to ponder the implications she might break. And Admiral Miriam Solovy did not break.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Above the curving arc of the planet, a mammoth explosion plumed crimson and charcoal then erupted in a starburst of crystaline white which for a microsecond shone brighter than a sun. For the briefest moment he allowed himself to entertain the notion that they might win this battle.

Then the real battle began.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“He steadied himself by resting one palm on her thigh and the other on the armrest, and rose to his knees. “I’ll be damned.”

“Possibly. But not today, I think.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“His whisper continued to stream a silent cacophony of warnings, kill and damage reports and pleas for assistance.

He allowed himself two seconds to watch it and came away with the sense they were losing. Not lost and not soon, but losing.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“She gazed at the bay of wrecked shuttles in dismay. The last of her adrenaline seeped away at the sight of the widespread destruction.

It occurred to her then, for perhaps the first time in this long nightmare, that she was going to die.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Guilt ripped into her like a rusty, serrated knife. It took up residence in her soul, settling in and getting comfortable so it could saw away ragged pieces of flesh and leave her to bleed.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“He wanted to grind every Federation world into dust beneath his boot as his army blazed a trail of blood and corpses all the way to Seneca.

He wanted to storm their inner sanctum and fire a laser into the skull of their Field Marshal while their Chairman watched, then fire a laser into the skull of their Chairman.

He wanted to burn their bodies on a pyre and carry the ashes back to Deucali and spread them on his mother’s consecrated grave.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Do you love me?”

His voice rang flat in his own ears, deadened and weighted with the recognition there was only one chance, and a fool’s chance at that”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Blood drummed in her ears and adrenaline coursed through her veins, driving her to move. To act. Her hands trembled against his chest.

Time vanished out from beneath her feet, one accelerating second at a time.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“As soon as he had departed she directed her attention to the others.

“I need a shielded containment box, radiation gloves and a micro welding torch. And a crescent wrench.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“Her weight settled on her back foot as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, now legitimately baffled.

“How delusional are you, aliens in your head notwithstanding?”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo

“He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment’s thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive.

Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the arena. Attack.

He had to move. Now.”
― G.S. Jennsen, Vertigo