Quotes from Genevieve Cogman

Do you doubt the Ten, my lord?

There were always problems in dealing with the Fae. Despite their human appearance, they were soul-destroying entities from beyond space and time who introduced chaos into alternate worlds.

Irene realized she was on the point of shouting. Worse, of being ungrammatical. She took a deep breath.

My life is painfully full of learning experiences where I've had to be an expert at short notice,

What she needed was a miracle. What she got was a dragon.

Sympathy would imply I might even try to help them. Pity is much safer. It can be delivered from on high without getting involved. I pity them.

How?" Irene enquired. She'd decided a while back that Socratic questioning was a good idea, because (a) it got students thinking for themselves, (b) sometimes they came up with ideas she hadn't thought of, and (c) it gave her more time to think while they were trying to find answers.

When the opponent completely controls the chessboard and things can't get worse for you, sometimes the answer is to make it worse for everyone . . .

Maybe if Irene uses the Language—how did you get here? We're down in the far end of chaos.

There was a silence that ranged from faith and trust (Kai) through horrified disbelief (Evariste) to a sort of harmony between high-grade suspicion (both Hu and Captain Venner) and consideration (George and Lily).

That's where both the Fae and the dragons fail......."They are defined either by narrative or reality. They don't go beyond that. The only person who can ever set bounds on you should be yourself.

In fact, we wish to remind all Librarians that they are here to collect books, not dinosaurs. Those Librarians who have problems distinguishing between the two should take a refresher course in Library basics.

Ah." Vale stepped away from the side of the zeppelin and offered her his hand. "Then I believe we can work together, Miss Winters.

The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities.

It was a leader's job to project a calm mastery of the situation, while also encouraging subordinates to develop decision-making skills. Assuming that they made the right decisions. A leader's job was a crock of shit.

All her life she had been taught that the Language allowed its users to shape reality.

She decided her persona needed one more little push, just to confirm herself in Qing Song's eyes as a powerful, arrogant, but conveniently ignorant idiot. "I trust that your investigation won't get in the way of mine. Which I shall start to commence now. Good day." A powerful, arrogant idiot with bad grammar, she amended her own thought.

Many were reacting to the crisis by getting drunk, and Irene couldn't blame them. It was a perfectly reasonable response to the situation, and it was supporting local businesses. A win–win situation.

Living outside the Library was never safe. Flying sleighs could come out of nowhere and hit you, however careful you were.

And on the few occasions when it simply hadn't been invented and you had indeed introduced the alternate to a whole new concept, you could end up with problems like cold fusion.

The Library runs on conspiracy theory. Admit nothing, deny everything, then find out what's going on and publish a paper on the subject. It's not as if they can stop you doing that.

You think very highly of yourself," Kai answered, equally quietly, but far more deadly, "if you believe that it doesn't matter.

Stories are like that. They'll wait for you until you can come back to them.

Stories matter – telling them, sharing them, preserving them, changing them, learning from them, and escaping with and through them. We learn about ourselves and the world that we live in through fiction just as much as through facts. Empathy, perception and understanding are never wasted. All libraries are a gateway into other worlds, including the past – and the future.