“In a city this size, every year, hundreds of husbands walk away. Kids leave home. Wives escape. People disappear.”

“People want to believe they know other people. Parents want to believe they know their kids. Wives want to believe they know their husbands.”

“I turn away from him and step into the vastness of New Crobuzon, this towering edifice of architecture and history, this complexitude of money and slum, this profane steam-powered god. I turn and walk into the city my home, not bird or garuda, not miserable crossbreed.I turn and walk into my home, the city, a man.”

“None of the wives mention the security guards by the door, who will probably tackle us to the ground if we try to leave without our husbands.”

“Okay, try this on for size, Tall, Dark and Handsome. I won't be born for almost seven hundred hundred years. How's that strike you?”

“Some miners’ wives take in washing and make more money than their husbands do. In every gold rush from this one to the Klondike, the suppliers and service industries will gather up the dust while ninety-nine per cent of the miners go home with empty pokes.”