Elizabeth Bear

“If you have to die [...] better to go down fighting. Better to die in company. Better not be the last, and alone, weighed down with all that knowing.”

“Opinions are like kittens," he commented. "People are always giving them away.”

“But Doc knew that was the key to successful lying. People judged what other people would do by what they themselves would do. You could tell a hell of a lot about a man by what he assumed others got up to. If you're looking for a thief, bet on the man who's always accusing his neighbors.”

“...one must come to the understanding in the end that one was always insufficiently practiced, and yet one must sometimes act anyway. Practice itself was an act.”

“For a brazen Libertine, an adulterer, a sodomite, an atheist, a fornicator, rakehell, heretic, godless playmaker and debaucher of innocents, you’re a sorry state of affairs.”

“Every one of us is a minor tragedy. Most of us learn to cope.”

“She said, "You're a warrior. So how do you kill without rage?""In compassion. Because of necessity." Hrahima set the empty water bowl back in Samarkar's hands. "The same way you carry water.”

“If you could disagree with kings, were gods so far above?”

“My love is not water in a bucket, you know. It's not as if someone else can drink it all up and leave none left for you.”

“The secret to getting away with lying, is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another”

“The older he got, the simpler the world was revealed to be.”

“Like the minor poet who knows the meanness of his gift, I am doomed to a lifetime of frustration: to be able to comprehend beauty, but not create it.”

“Her neural pattern must remain intact for the time being, as it was still necessary that she stay herself. Changes to her identity would eventually become inevitable, but those would have to wait until she no longer needed the cloak of who she was.”

“The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.”

“You know," he said, "every time a vampire says he doesn't believe in lycanthropes, a werewolf bursts into flames.”

“May I know your name, sir?"The smile rearranged his face under the terrible scars. "Nezahualcoyotl. Michel Nezahualcoyotl. Charmed.”

“The words were low, more shape than breath.”