Quotes from Mike Carey

Michael: There's nothing here to fear. Lucifer: Well, there's always the truth.

All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made from light and fire. And they lift our hearts out of the dust, and out of the grave.

No, there are no special places in hell. Hell is a democracy.

That's what I've never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any day of the week; at least you can play chicken with him and know he'll stick to the rules.

I took a strong dislike to him right then to save time and effort later.

I have stared into the light and you are all my shadows.

Those heart-hammering nightmares that start to lose coherence even as you're waking up from them, but that still manage to leave their moldering fingerprints all across your day.

Elaine: He saved my life twice. He's the only grown-up I know who keeps his promises. Michael: Yes. It is a point of pride with him. But please — don't mistake it for a virtue.

When a book is read an irrevocable thing happens — a murder, followed by an imposture. The story in the mind murders the story on the page, and takes its place.

All the waters in the oceans won't fill a bucket with a hole in it

Words are the birds that break cover and show your enemy where you're hiding.

When God has abandoned you and the devil is snapping at your heels, what you really need on your side is a bigger devil.

Be yourself, until you bleed.

You use the word "Infinity" very glibly.... Have you ever been there? Time and space are extensions of the mind, the will. Which means that infinity is a purely local phenomenon. You can turn over a stone and find it crawling there. Or you can make it yourself out of whatever materials are at hand.

Nothing is immune to Time. Not even eternity.

The world is a book. Some words stand out from the page.

The world seems to work in predictable ways, and you think you see the pattern. But that's fatal. Because it's only a pattern until you meet the first event that doesn't fit. And by then it's too late. By then, all the tricks you've learned to deal with the world -- well, they just don't work anymore.

It's not a holiday until you overdo it!

It wasn't what I was expecting, but like I've always said: if life gives you lemmings, jump off a cliff.

On into the void he flies, unafraid. There is nothing in mere absence that can cow him. Or loneliness. Or the lack of maps and charts. For he is his own path. And he sees by his own light. We watch him from a great distance. From a vantage point no less subjective, no less absolute. And so it's hard to tell whether he imposes himself on the emptiness, or becomes it.

Happy Families. What's that all about, eh? A bloody busted flush is what it is. You surround yourself with other people so the night doesn't seem quite so dark. Shout down the sound of the wind with arguments about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Best not to kid yourself. Best not to give any hostages to fortune. You're on your own in the end. Always. Where else would you want to be?

Could it hurt to take a look? The answer was yes, of course. It's always yes. But I went anyway.

It was a hot, moist armpit of a night...

And send not to ask for whom the fucking bell tolls, because you're not going to like the answer.