Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

Eventually, I realized I was wasting my time, and if I wanted to hide from humanity in a bottle, I was better off making it a titanium one with a warp drive and a couple of carefully selected companions.

The drink is drunk. The dice and draughts are set aside at the waning edge of a long night of testing conversations and ugly murmurs.

The tree laughed like crystal wind chimes. The sound crawled along my nerves and the nape of my neck in an unpleasant frisson.

Perceval embraced her, and she smelled the blood and the antiseptic, and when she lowered her mouth over Rien's, Rien tasted the faint sourness of uncleaned teeth. One would think her colony would take care of that for her, but then, it had perhaps been busy.

Leah and I connect, and we have since she was barely old enough to grab my finger and stare deeply into my eyes. There's something about her that reminds me of Nell, come to think of it. Wide-eyed wonder and a whim of carbon steel.

Following a voice that sings only for his ears, the wolf steps from the cold emptiness of a dead world into the bustling street of one that is merely dying fast.

Because a girl would never have made it here without knowing somebody, right?

They were alone in the corridor, though the wail of the siren and the thump of emergency lights on her retinas made her shudder with adrenaline.

The necromancer framed the dead woman's eyes with soft fingertips, and leaned so close that Tristen felt as if he had interrupted a seduction.

Rien took her and, reminding herself that falling for strangers simply because they looked like Perceval was stupid. Although Perceval would never want her, and wouldn't holding on be stupider, still?

The dark moss of her cloak makes her hair shine all the brighter, and the green contrasts with the brilliant blue of her eyes.

No. He would. He would not repudiate Kit, on his deathbed for any reason.

Will lifted his chin to catch Murchaud's gaze, thinking when did I grow so comfortable, challenging Princes?

Elspeth chuckles, that half-swallowed ironic laugh I've got so fond of, and lowers her voice.

Not trying to stare the Dragon in the eye seemed to ease her.

One cannot love dust. One might as well put the hook in one's heart oneself.

He held the book close to his face, open, cupped in the palm of his hands, inhaling the oak-leaf scent of the pages.

The kiss was long and soft, fever-hot and gentle, although holding Perceval in her arms was not unlike embracing a rope ladder. Her lips were soft and cracked over the firmness of her teeth, and it seemed Rien expanded on her breath like a blown balloon.

His heart filled up with something vast and terrible at the realization, a shadowy whirl of wings and storm and light, and he knew why men died for Elizabeth. He would have died for Elizabeth himself. And he understood as well that there were things bigger than Elizabeth, bigger than England, for all they were things for which he did not have a name. Faith. God. Liberty. None of it was enough. Worse things had been done in those names than Elizabeth's.

The structure of the world loomed in the partial visibility overhead, a lattice skeleton swathed erratically with light and darkness, further structures gleaming dully through translucent gas until depth of field rendered it opaque.

Even Matthew, whose taste did not run that way at all, could see that he was beautiful, his black hair slicked back, his suit impeccably tailored and his claret tie fastened with a silver stickpin, a fleur-de-lis that matched the discreet medallions on his cordovon loafers.

Patty felt another blush stain her cheeks as she drew her knees up and, hurrying her feet under her bulk, hid herself in differential equations again.

Mingan smiled and set Cathoair down, deceptively gentle. The Wolf leaned him against the wall, barely upright…and grabbed his chin in one hand, and the nape of his neck in the other.

She swallowed uncomfortable dryness at the unprecedented endearment, trying not to remember he'd been as affectionate to Mr. Priest when she was not meant to overhear.