“And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.”

“Fantasy and science fiction can be literal as well as allegorical and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a monster like a giant squid for what it is, as well as searching for metaphor.”

“Isaac liked the idea of an inter-aspectual entity so enamored with knowledge that it just roamed from realm to realm in a bath, murmuring with interest at everything it came across.”

“The city’s a heart, I said, and in that a heart and a city were sutured into a third thing, a heartish city, and cities are heart-stained, and hearts are city-stained too.”

“It had become a chimney poking from a vertical universe of bookshelves. There was motion below her. There were people on the shelves. They clung to the edges of the cases and moved across them in expert scuttles. They wore ropes and hooks and carried picks on which they sometimes hung. Dangling from straps they carried notebooks, pens, magnifying glasses, ink pads, and stamps. The men and women took books from the shelves as they went, checked their details, leaning against their ropes, replaced them, pulled out little pads and made notes, sometimes carried the books with them to another place and reshelved it there. ... I'm Margarita Staples." She bowed in her harness. 'Extreme librarian. Bookaneer.”

“Art is something you choose to make... it's a bringing together of... of everything around you into something that makes you more human, more khepri, whatever. More of a person.”

“Is it more childish and foolish to insist that there is a conspiracy or that there is not?”