Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

His grin turns into a thoughtful pursing of the lips, and he actually seems to consider my question.

Kit had come to think of the Darkling Glass as a sort of consequence, reliable as a faithful hound; and it annoyed him to no end to find the thing suddenly misbehaving.

Am I just a sufficiently complicated and randomized construct that I adequately simulate intelligence? Or am I just a mock-up?

He frowned at her now, studying her face-the sharp jaw and small nose, the high forehead over deep-set eyes, the architecture of pride and knowledge and competence that the sharpness of grief could not diminish.

Plans. I thought about plans. Plants and plants.

It took me a moment to identify the terrible bubbling sound coming over my com as Farweather laughing at me between swallows of blood. I resisted the urge to smash her fucking helmet in, but only barely.

Coward, he thought again, meeting Eremei Fyodorovich's laughter-sweet eyes. He wondered briefly if Ian's would be as changeable as Elaine's or if they were green like his own.

I couldn't hold a thought. I couldn't accomplish a task without being distracted. And I couldn't keep my temper at all.

Keith was surprised that his own mount seemed singularly unimpressed by the hellbeast.

You bumped your psychopathy up, didn't you?" He smiled generously. "Of course I did. I'm flying. Can't be distracted by doubts.

It was a morally complex equation.

She was ten months ahead of the curriculum and still bored.

tube itself was fighting her in ways that it wouldn't in space. Ruby was so used to not complaining, because she was short. Because she was a woman. Anything she said would be seen as a failure on her part. But the resistance was an NBLism and not a problem the actual spacewalker would face, and people's lives were on the line.

Sebastien had raised Jack Priest, and for all his fey flighty affection, Garrett's estimation of the young man was that he was a keenly trained observer, and one who knew that the most relevant clues were sometimes those that seemed incomprehensible at the time. And that that ostensible delicacy masked a galvanized will. She kept a terrier. She knew the type.

I could tell Madame was included in that "girls," and it put my back up. She had years and miles on Dyer Stone, and brains to boot. But he had a prick, and inherited money, and a prick.

Maybe I was haunted, because I swear I felt a fleeting sense of contact, then, like the brush of immaterial fingers in my hair.

Patty's mouth twisted; her expression said creepy kid, but Genie was too lonely to get up and leave, even if she knew Patty didn't want her there.

It had fallen far, this construct. Literally and figuratively. And so had he.

I shall reclaim the bird sooner or later, sweet William." "Aye," Will said. "But not until ravens flocks these grounds again. Do we have an agreement, my lady?" She bit her lip, ignoring the Mebd's arch amusement. "He's hidden from me for a thousand years," Morgan le Fey said at last, acquiesing. Her hand slid gracefully down to rest on her thigh, cupped inward, palm open. "A few days mean nothing.

It was as if two different versions of reality coexisted in my head at the same time.

It's why I want us to be very careful what we commit to while we're dealing with this station. They make bad governmental choices, and by patronizing them, we're just validating their choices.

His breath smelled faintly of blood, as from a bitten cheek. His handshake was quite firm, masculine, but not so the delicate squeeze before he disengaged. Meant to be shocking-or alluring-but Sebastien was too old to be shocked and he had already been allured. After a fashion.

Except there was no time for recriminations now, was there? Not with Will's life and Elizabeth's crown on the line.

I was wondering, frankly, what kind of pointless gesture I could make just so I wouldn't feel like I was just dying passively.