The Builders Quotes

“I wonder if you're fast as they say," Bessie Weasel chirruped, her hand slowly straying toward the belt.
"Wondering is free," Cinnabar said finally, his voice soft and low. "Certainty has its price".”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“The two old friends stood silently in the fading light, though you wouldn’t have known it to look at them. That they were old friends, I mean. Anyone could see it was getting dark.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“And indeed, it was not her steady hand that made Boudica the greatest sniper who had ever sighted down a target. Nor her eyes, eyes that had picked out the Captain long moments before anyone else could have even identified him as a mouse. It was that she understood how to wait, to empty herself of everything in anticipation of that one perfect moment - and then to fill that moment with death.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“He was as happy as a pup on Christmas morning, as a maid on her wedding night, as a wolf before his bloody red supper.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“The Captain was halfway to the door when he felt the press of metal against his throat. “I am Bonsoir,” the stoat hissed, a scant inch from the Captain’s ears. “I have cracked rattlesnake eggs while their mother slept soundly atop them, I have snatched the woodpecker mid-flight. More have met their end at my hand than from corn liquor and poisoned bait! I am Bonsoir, whose steps fall without sound, whose knives are always sharp, who comes at night and leaves widows weeping in the morning.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“The Quaker did not scream: not when the blood began to come swiftly down his face, not when the force of Elf's attack carried both of them tumbling out over the walls and down into the ether, the desperate and hoped-for outcome, a fatal embrace descending, together forever, into the darkness.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“It took the rats a long time to realize they were better off not sprinting straight into the courtyard—rats are not known for their tactical sense. Really rats aren’t known for much, except for being numerous and dying easily. Or at least they died easily that day, even after they started taking cover in the surrounding buildings and trying to snipe at Barley. He was well positioned in the dark, and at this point the mounds of corpses he had made acted as cover. It took twenty minutes for one of the cleverer rodents to remember the heavy artillery, and another twenty to wheel one out from its position on the battlements. They wasted a lot of ammo finding the proper range, though they did a good job of destroying large sections of the castle. And in the meantime Barley continued his work, rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. And to find an equal to his tally, to do that bloody arithmetic—if one was inclined to do so, if one’s mind ran in that sort of direction—one would have needed to compare him against disease, and time, and heartbreak.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“It is a scientific fact that time is infinitely divisible, that each moment contains within it the fragments of a thousand others, and each of them can be splintered into a thousand more, and so on and so on.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Mexico doesn’t have an emperor.” “That is Mexico’s misfortune, for all of the greatest countries have emperors.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“The rows of empty jugs had multiplied with the speed of caged rabbits.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Penso non ci sia un animale nei Giardini con altrettanto talento per l’odio [...] e quindi non devi certo sorprenderti se ha scelto di esercitare la sua abilità. I pesci nuotano, gli uccelli volano, e il Capitano odia.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“It is a scientific fact that time is infinitely divisible, that each moment contains within it the fragments of a thousand others, and each of them can be splintered into a thousand more, and so on and so on. Somewhere then, hidden within these shards of time that occur in the endless instants between the second hand, Cinnabar moved, setting his webbed palm around the pistol at his waist and fanning off two shots. To the subjective observer, however - to Angie and her unfortunate sibling - the salamander's movements were impossible to follow. Before their brains could process the information gathered by their senses, perhaps even before their senses had recognized the stimulus itself, bits of iron had exploded through their skulls and made either act impossible.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Bonsoir!" Bonsoir said”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“A chubby vole sat as guardian between the two sections, making sure the hoi polloi didn't get any ideas above their station. His name was Harold, and the most important thing he had learned in his life, as far as he was concerned, was that it was entirely possible to sleep with one's eyes open, or at least open enough to deceive passersby, if one was willing to put in a bit of practice. True, it wasn't as good as a full-on nap, but any degree of slumber was better than waking. As far as Harold was concerned, the biter part of existence lay in those little moments of oblivion that preceded the last.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Once the trouble started he lit one of those boom sticks. Captain put him down, but..." Barley shrugged his swelled shoulders. "Not fast enough. The explosion took out the Captain's eye, and it did for that half of Reconquista that isn't there anymore"
"I always like that half"
"I imagine Reconquista was partial to it as well.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“The reason I have survived is very simple—it is because I am a survivor.” “And I’m not?” “No, Captain, I do not think you are. Don’t misunderstand me—you survive, obviously, or we wouldn’t be talking right now. But I do not think you are a survivor, if you see the difference.” “I imagine it’s about to be explained.” “You see, my old friend—I do what needs to be done at the moment I need to do it, and I don’t concern myself overmuch with the day before or after. When the Kingdom to the South looked weak, I raised the flag of rebellion. When it grew stronger, I made peace, and reaped the rewards. The wind blows, and I let it carry me along. Not you—quite the opposite, really. You find the fiercest gale you can and spit into its face! Now one might admire your audacity, and even the strength it takes to stand your comeuppance. But still, the wind blows, does it not? And you . . . you are still wet.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“the sort of creature whose wildest fantasies were filled with ledgers that balanced perfectly, and rows of clocks chiming in eternal unison.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“Next to her a calico cat puffed away at a hubble-bubble. Puss’s watch cost more than his vest, and his vest cost more than his boots, and his boots cost more than a house. If you stripped him naked and sold off his costume, you’d walk away with enough money to retire—though if you left him alive you wouldn’t have long to enjoy it. The only thing that could rival Puss’s vanity was his sadism.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“A Frenchman, as any Frenchman will tell you, is a difficult condition to abide, as much a privilege as a responsibility. To maintain the appropriate standards of excellence, this superlative of grace, was a burden not so light even in the homeland, and immeasurably more difficult in the colonies. Being both French and a stoat had resulted in a more or less constant crisis of self-identity— one which Bonsoir often worked to resolve, in classic Gallic fashion, via monologue.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“were the best of friends. One of them was likely to kill the other before long.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders

“But that is nature’s fault, and not the stoat’s; the stoat is what it has been made to be, as are we all.”
― Daniel Polansky, The Builders