Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

Mehiel, Kit reminded, my Power may be chained and my magic shorn from me, but I am a bard, a poet, and a warlock too. And there's a warlock too. And there's a half-completed Bible in Tom Walsingham's study that says that my God has as much claim on the world as the God of Richard Baines and…Lucifer.

He remembered hard hands turned generous, and shuddered.

Torches glittered and cast dancing shadows here and there, a confusion of greater and lesser lights, for there was really no darkness in any corner now.

I begrudge your assistance. And I begrudge Mallory." "Tough," Samael said. He stepped forward, bounced up on his toes, and planted a kiss on Dust's scaly cheek. "I know you want to be the last angel standing. But brother, so do I.

The rain washing his house tickled his skin, the memory of a caress on skin that had not felt such a thing in centuries.

She didn't know how close to the heresy of the Go-Backs she trod.

Because I don't trust myself to make those decisions was not the sort of vulnerability you revealed to an enemy.

The devils bowed to one another, one cruel-eyed and smoking, rose petals sizzling under his footsteps, the other white and fair and wearing a crown of dancing shadows on his brow.

Perceval had never been kissed before. Oh, yes, she'd kissed Rien, but that was not such a kiss as this. This was soft and melting, Mallory's bony and elegant hand pressed to her cheek and a slick tongue lightly flicking her closed mouth. And Perceval had no idea how to react.

She was fashionably thin, the line of her jaw sharp as the detail on a porcelain horse, the tendons in her throat vanishing under the ivory silk collar of her suit.

Muire had never expected the Technomancer, as people were beginning to call her, to come to her door.

Much as I'd like to keep him standing in the hallway, I step back and let him into my cabin. He takes up most of the available floor space, all cleft chin and precision.

You changed; you adapted; you made the most of what you were and strove to become more. He would survive.

The common factor linking all of my unhappy romances is me.

He tilts his head to one side, studying me like a judge eyeing a show dog. The effect is ruined when he sneezes.

We didn't build House. We just adaptd it, learned how to program it.

She smiled, and I couldn't tell if she was fairly to take my meaning or failing to take my meaning on purpose, or just didn't consider it the insult I had intended it to be. Actually she looked like she was taking it as a compliment, and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

Oxford smiled and Kit still knew him well enough to read the pleasure of a chess player who has successfully anticipated his opponent.

May the enemies you make be interesting ones." "My father used to say that." "Your father"-the smile made itself patent-"was an interesting enemy." "Yes." Tristen rubbed his fingertips in circles against the heels of his hands, making how armour rasp. "I recall.

Even if Rien awoke sore and sticky, it was a better awakening than the last.

If the petty rebellion makes you feel better, Casey, by all means, indulge yourself.

We didn't build House. We just adapted it, learned how to program it.

He did not need the watch, the glance, or the gesture. He knew the time, it ticked out within him with atomic regularity. But the ceremony pleased him nonetheless.

He wasn't sure if the salt and iron he tasted was blood and the bridle, or Mehiel's tears.