Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

Outside, the folded sky of white space-and my time as a free person (was I a free person?)-whisked silently by.

Whatever this child had from Strifbjorn…he was smarter than Strifbjorn had ever shown himself.

Call it the universe of the Prometheans' goal-if they wish to shape the stories, I wish not to be shaped by them.

The cosmic irony of the moment didn't elude him.

It is perilous to admit weakness. It is even more perilous to lie to dragons.

He sipped his drink, made a thinking noise, and rubbed a spatulate fingertip across his annoyingly well-formed nose.

By the way, should you have the opportunity to be kidnapped by radicals, you'd rather fall in with the Right Hand Path than with Maenads, if you get the choice.

It paid to understand the politics, and for all their prickles the blood had long learned the value of shared information.

Kit turned to fix Ben with a glare, but the wry bemusement on the young poet's face turned a searing glance into a sideways shrug. One that made Ben cough again, and then burst out laughing, both hands over his face.

It would heal quite perfectly. And the sensation of the thick salvaged blood beating from his wounds into David's mouth as David knelt over him, his blond locks stuck willy-nilly between the clenching knuckles of Sebastien's hand-that was a passion worth anything.

The gleam in her eyes tells it all.

I hauled my heart out of my pants with both hands and followed it through the breachd hull, and into the night.

I was too exhausted with memories and the volatile tears that memories seemed to drag from me at every opportunity now.

What sort of hounds are those?" "Faerie hounds, Sir Poet," Puck answered, putting Kit's boot as he hung the little silk pouch around his neck. "With yawning mouths, sharp teeth, and wet lolling tongus. Fleet of limb, compact of foot, and tireless in the hunt.

I'm not a religious person, though I dabbled for a while.

Space: still ridiculously big.

I shook my head, cold air seeping through the holes in my ragged gown and my plait moving like a serpent against my spine.

It was a dream of London, Mehiel told Kit. A dream of England: not quite Faerie, but a place that was neither quite Faerie nor real.

I'faith, Kit, is there any man in Elizabeth's court you haven't let bugger you?" "There's a few I've buggered instead." Kit waited for the chuckle. Will did not fail him.

The last thing this fumbling child needed was to think somebody he was looking to as a role model found him amusing.

The coffee's good, dark, redolent. The surface is clotted with broken rainbows. I raise it to my mouth, pause breathing in the steam. Just the smell of it is energy.

I hauled my heart out of my pants with both hands and followed it through the breached hull, and into the night.

People like Farweather, unconstrained, create conditions so awful that people eventually decided to change themselves rather than keep living-than way.

He could not be distracted by his darling girls when he must be about seducing villains.