Ink & Sigil Quotes

“We have a box of salt in there distilled from the tears of men who try to harass us.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“But besides all that, if ye ever have the power to make someone's dream come true and ye don't, then what kind of a selfish shite would ye be?”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“After all, there is nothing so deadly, so ultimately terminal, as being alive.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“No a word 'bout my nails, Al. Or anything. This situation here is only because I love ma wee brother and need tae convince his bride's family that I'm totally normal and no involved with the occult, plus I'm pretending that ma uterus desperately wants a ten-month lease from some man's seed but I'm just too busy at the moment, awright?”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Whenever someone shoulders past me or cuts me off, I feel like rooting for them instead of getting angry, and I hope they’re able to make it to the toilet before disaster strikes. I cheer for the steadfastness of their sphincters and wish them long life and clean underwear. People think I am patient, but not really; I just get it. We are ruled by our bladders and bowels.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Live long enough and people from your past will echo, calling back to you years after they have left you behind.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Naw, I code video games and set futons on fire. One pays the rent and the other’s a moral obligation.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“gods so rarely do anything tae us. Or for us”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“We are ruled by our bladders and bowels.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Is that a thing selkies do, make ye pine?” [Their beauty is a defense. The idea is that humans won’t want to hurt them if they’re extraordinarily beautiful.] “Really? That seems like an epic misjudgment of humanity.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“I subscribe to a theory that answers cannot hide from us forever if we seek them long enough.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“A toast! Tae inks and sigils and straight razors, tae good bosses and wizards on lizards, tae outsmarting evil when ye can and kicking its arse when ye cannae do that, and tae distillers of fine spirits everywhere. Sláinte!”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Nigel went to Toronto on holiday and got his skull cracked by a hockey puck.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Dugs are beings of pure love and devotion and broadcast hope to those of us who have only memories of such things, for they demonstrate by their existence that love and devotion still walk abroad in the world, and therefore it’s worthwhile to live in it.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“people who enslaved other beings yet sang of the “land of the free” to pay for their unforgivable cruelty and hypocrisy.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“How much of the world could burn down, I wondered, while football was on the telly? How much magic and wonder was missed while people were distracted by something flickering on their screens?”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“What? I cannae watch telly? What am I supposed tae do, then?” [Read.] “For fun? Oh, I’ve heard of that.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“There was no way to predict how people would take news that required them to shift their paradigms. Most of the time such news just bounced off them, the way horrific shite about a candidate bounces off a party’s faithful because they can’t face the fact that they voted for a monster and they may in fact be monsters themselves. Easier to just deny it all, call it fake news. No introspection required.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Information control is the name of the game. It is the game. Some people think it’s money, but it’s no money at all. Information is what gets ye money.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Most people are susceptible to manipulation through visual media—ask anyone in advertising.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“Mouthfeel is a part of everything ye eat, ya cow. There’s taste and smell, aye, but there’s also a tactile component tae eating that most people ignore, and they shouldnae.” “So if I’m no thinking about ma yogurt’s mouthfeel, I’m daein’ it wrong? Is that what ye’re sayin’ tae me right now?” “Not just yer yogurt. Everything ye cram in yer gob. Yer shite sandwiches and yer thin curries and yer weak tea.” The taller woman gasped. “Nadia! You fucking take that back. Ma tea is not weak.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“On the side of the building at the north end of the row was a mural of a dark-bearded man in a woolly hat gazing down at a finch resting peacefully on his index finger, his hand curled into a gentle fist, and I found it an inspiring reminder that we should always consider the welfare of others and think of the smallest and weakest first. It was a modern look at Glasgow’s patron saint, St. Mungo, painted by an Australian artist. Even”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“present company excluded—and if someone could only find a way to apply enough suction, maybe Parliament would finally get its heid pulled out of its arse and do something sensible for once. These aren’t solutions to the emptiness. They are merely harnesses, safety lines tethering you to the cliff face as your bollocks dangle over the abyss. Absolutely vital to survival, but never a replacement for the great lost love of your life. I lost my wife to an auto accident when we were fifty. I’ve been dangling ever since.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“It is an emptiness like no other, because even if it is filled with some other thing later on, it’s a final subtraction that no addition will mend. To distract from the yawning nothingness, you keep busy. Gardening. Walking the dog, or just walking and petting other people’s dogs. Reading, smoking, and drinking. Doing your job. Finding a friend or three to have tea with or a morning gab over breakfast, where you can all agree that the world is”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“I can’t tell you how empty you feel after your love has walked the world with you and then gone home to sleep forever. It’s not the emptiness of youth, of never having loved; that’s different. That’s the sort of thing where you know you’re missing something but you’re not sure what it is, when you listen to love songs and think it must be fine but you don’t fully know what they’re on about. Naw, it’s more like suddenly losing a tooth and you feel the absence keenly, a hole in your body that used to be filled, except it’s much bigger than that. It’s an empty room, an empty chair, a pillow next to yours that doesn’t bear the soft round impression of the dear head who dreamt so many dreams by your side.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“How much magic and wonder was missed while people were distracted by something flickering on their screens?”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“He pulled up a news article with the headline Monsters Attack Village in Ukraine and pointed at it. “Someone”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“It staggered me at times to think of how much money and cancer had flowed through that relatively small area, a metaphor for all of capitalism’s glories and evils.”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“[I have to do some research.] “Fine, but can ye no just use the Internet?” Buck asked. [What do you know about that?] “I’ve . . . heard of it.” [I can use it for lots of things, sure. But there are people who can find what you need faster than an old man pecking around a search engine.] “Yeah? Who?” [Librarians.] “Ohhh, aye. I’ve heard o’ them too. They always know where the secret room is with the treasure in it. They like tae go plumbing in there, if ye know what I mean.” [I don’t know what stories you’ve been hearing in Tír na nÓg, but that’s not what a librarian does. And neither do plumbers.]”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil

“The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett”
― Kevin Hearne, Ink & Sigil