Quotes from Nicola Griffith

Her mother couldn't read. Her mother hadn't noticed the signs of a bad winter. Cian wasn't even there. Hereswith was far away, and Fursey. She had taken a double risk and there was no one to help her.

Her thoughts came together, smooth as a shield wall: The fact they could check the prophecy they must believe.

In the flickering ochre-and-gold light, Peretur saw the heat rise in Nimuë's cheeks, and her lips redder, and her own belly warmed, and she filled with another hunger.

The women's hall, if anything, was even bawdier than the men's. Veils were askew and sleeves were tucked in belts. Arddun and Gwladus could barely keep up with filling the cups and Hunric's wife, inarticulate with mead, was shaking a broken-stringed lyre as though it were a choking baby.

She looked alert and lithe, a dancer with briefcase in the wrong building.

She could not move fast against the weight of water, not against a mounted man, so she did the only thing she could and hurled the boar spear across the horse's path, straight into the bank.

Her mother's voice was rich and round with secrets.

Some wield money like a blunt instrument, bludgeoning their way to what they want. Others hold it up like a flashing light. Look! See how important I am! I prefer to employ it as a lubricant, to ease the wear and tear of daily living.

It occurred to Hild that both Hereswith and Cian now had their own paths. She had only her mother's dream.

Her sister and gemæcce already had the beginning of a kin web here in a foreign land. They wouldn't be all alone.

She knows when to let go. You should, too.

I'm your friend. I have been for a long time, even if I sometimes wonder if you know what that means.

While Begu slept Hild lay awake, hungry and restless and savage.

He grinned, and winked one of those startling greened-bronze eyes.

She knew that scent, and her need rose like the tide.

It was like being inside a lyre, inside a drum, inside a pipe. Hild thought her head might burst.

I wondered whether to file flattery under useful teaching technique or craven behavior.

Geordie Karp hurt people and manipulated them because they weren't real to him. He acted as if he were human, but he was a monster.

I was the one who helped, the competent one, armored and invulnerable. Aud rhymes with proud.

What a waste and fuss for a bit of water and a few words.

Remember when you asked me why I didn't hit Geordie? It was because I don't know how. That little girl in Arkansas doesn't, either. You do. I know that.

The music was like a living stream, pulsing beneath bodies, collecting thickly in dark corners, vibrating bone so hard it might have been cartilege.

Cei called more taunts, but she was smelling the wind and no longer listening.

She had no idea why it was so much harder for her to folk in Anglisc to anyone but Begu, it just was, though these last weeks she was learning how to let the words come. It helped if there was no weightiness behind them, no import; if they were only words with no life or death hanging in the balance.