Short Story Writers From England

"“I’d rather you didn’t smoke in here.” “Kawahara, I’d rather you died of an internal hemorrhage, but I don’t suppose you’ll oblige me.”"

"“You’re being a lot less courteous than befits a man in your situation.” I thought that underneath the cool I could detect a ragged edge in her voice. Despite her much vaunted self-control, Reileen Kawahara wasn’t much better at coping with disrespect that Bancroft, General MacIntyre, or any other creature of power I’d had dealings with. “Your life is in danger, and I am in a position to safeguard it.” “My life’s been in danger before,” I told her. “Usually as a result of some piece of shit like you making large-scale decisions about how reality ought to be run.”"

"“Petty tyrant a long time back. He built this place.” “Trepp said it belonged to the Catholics.” Kawahara shrugged. “Petty tyrant with delusions of religion. Catholics get on well with tyranny. It’s in the culture.”"

"The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?"

"She held her discarded shoulder holster dangling in one hand, and her breasts moved beneath the thin cotton of a white T-shirt that bore the legend YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT—WHY DON’T YOU TRY IT FOR A WHILE?"

"I’m stacked, backed up and I’m fifth dan And I’m not afraid of the Patchwork Man"

"“The human eye is a wonderful device,” I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. “With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”"

"Just as a primitive sextant functions on the illusion that the sun and stars rotate around the planet we are standing on, our senses give us the illusion of stability in the universe, and we accept it, because without that acceptance, nothing can be done. Virginia Vidaura, pacing the seminar room, lost in lecture mode. But the fact that a sextant will let you navigate accurately across an ocean does not mean that the suns and stars do rotate are us. For all that we have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe is not stable, nor is any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying, and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory. This is reality, this is self-knowledge, and the perception of it will, of course, make you dizzy."

"The past is relevant only as data."

"Money doesn’t automatically mean taste."

"They were cold, professionally polished, and well on their way up a career ladder that would ensure that despite the uniforms they wore, they would never have to come within a thousand kilometers of a genuine firefight. The only problem they had, as they cruised sharkishly back and forth across the cool marble floor of the court, was in drawing the fine differences between war—mass murder of people wearing a uniform not your own; justifiable loss—mass murder of your own troops, but with substantial gains; and criminal negligence—mass murder of your own troops, without appreciable benefit."

"Bancroft wants privacy, he spends half a million on discretion systems. Me, I just go talk where no one’s listening."

"Naturally these penalties were applicable only to private citizens, not military commanders or government executives. The powerful are jealous of their toys."

"Like Bancroft, MacIntyre had been a man of power, and like all men of power, when he talked of prices worth paying, you could be sure of one thing. Someone else was paying."

"We are, after all, evolved to relate to the physical world."

"“Bay City public prosecutor’s office wants to subpoena a Catholic who’s in storage. Pivotal witness. The Vatican says she’s already dead, and in the hands of God. They’re calling it blasphemy.” “I see. So your loyalties are pretty undivided here.” She stopped and turned to face me. “Kovacs, I hate these goddamn freaks. They’ve been grinding us down for the best part of two and a half thousand years. They’ve been responsible for more misery than any other organization in history. You know they won’t even let their adherents practice birth control, for Christ’s sake, and they’ve stood against every significant medical advance of the last five centuries.”"

"When I was younger I used to go out looking for squalid brawls in the streets of Newpest. This got a couple of people stabbed, neither of them me, and led in turn to my apprenticeship in one of the Harlan’s World gangs, Newpest chapter. Later on I upgraded this kind of retreat by joining the military: brawling with a purpose, and with more extensive weaponry, but as it turned out, just as squalid. I don’t suppose I should have been as surprised as I was—the only thing the Marine Corps recruiter had really wanted to know was how many fights I had won."

"Anyone who bar-codes their employees isn’t likely to be the forgiving type, and the reflex of long-held obedience through hierarchy is usually enough to overcome fear of a combat death. That’s how you fight wars, after all—with soldiers who are more afraid of stepping out of line than they are of dying on the battlefield."

"Society is, always has been and always will be a structure for the exploitation and oppression of the majority through systems of political force dictated by an élite, enforced by thugs, uniformed or not, and upheld by a wilful ignorance and stupidity on the part of the very majority whom the system oppresses."

"THOUGH the sun was hot on this July morning Mrs Lucas preferred to cover the half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that her husband had ordered to meet her."

"The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other"

"Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we'll hope for the best."

"The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here—it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference—the only difference in their eyes—between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life, and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal."

"“You smoke?” “Smoke? Do I look like a fucking idiot?”"

"Culture is like a smog. To live within it, you must breathe some of it in and, inevitably, be contaminated."

"She curled her lip. She had discovered cynicism."

"“I was arguing with Father Sebastian the other day,” she said thoughtfully. “I quoted the thing about giving all you have to the poor. He said that was all very well but you had to come to terms with the Scriptures and realize there had to be teachers and leaders for the people’s own good. It seemed an awful get-out to me, and I couldn’t help saying so. I told him if the Church would sell half her altar plate she could buy shoes for everybody in the country, and a lot else besides; and that if the Pope would make a start in Rome I’d see about getting rid of a few job lots of furniture down in Corfe. I’m afraid he didn’t take very kindly to it. I know it was wrong of me but he annoys me sometimes; he’s so pious, and it seems to mean so very little. He’d walk miles in the snow to pray for a sick child, he’s a very good man; but if there was more money about to start with, maybe the child wouldn’t have been taken ill. It all seems so unnecessary....”"

"She stopped dead; and the look in her eyes showed plainly she’d just received the import of a crude lesson in economics."

"The waves were indifferent, and the wind; and the rocks neither knew nor cared who owned them, Christ’s Vicar or an English King."

"He like the Church he serves is blind and empty and vainglorious. This God they prattle on about, where’s His justice, where’s His compassion? Does it please Him to see dying people hounded in His name, does He snigger at His bumbling priests, is He satisfied when men drop dead chopping stone out for His temples, twisted little God dying tepid-faced on a cross....She thought, I’ll go out and look for other gods, and maybe they’ll be better and anyway they can’t be worse."

"She said faintly, “Are you...real?” Amusement showed in his face. “Real?” he said. “Define reality and I can answer you.” He waved a hand. “Look into solid earth, into rock, and see the galaxies of all Creation. What you call reality melts; there is a whirling, a spinning of forces, a dance of motes and atoms. Some of them we call planets, one of them is Earth. Nothingness within nothingness enclosing nothing, that is reality. Tell me what you want, and I can answer.”"

"It’s a terrible thing, being afraid. It’s like an illness; like wanting to fall down, and not being able to faint. You see you never get used to it. You live with it and live with it and every day it’s worse; and one day it’s the worst of all. I thought, when it...happened, I wouldn’t be afraid. But I was wrong...."

"The years had a way of piling themselves one atop the next, unnoticed and uncounted; that was how young men turned into old ones."

"A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth."

"“Confession,” he said, “must be sincere. It must come from the heart. False confession, made to avoid the pain of Questioning, is useless to Church and God alike. Our aim is salvation; the salvation of the souls of these poor wretches in our charge, if necessary by the breaking of their bodies. Set against this, all else is straw in the wind.”"

"We read to know that we are not alone."

"Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn fast."

"Brothers, what we do in life, echoes in eternity."

"Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him."

"'I don't want to do any of those things you said. I want – I want – to make things right.' 'Then so you shall.' 'Is it so easy?' 'Not easy. Not easy at all. Think how much is wanting to make things wrong. All the fear in the world, and the violence that comes from the fear, and the hatred that comes from the violence, and the loneliness that comes from the hatred. All the unhappiness, all the cruelty, it gathers like clouds in the air, and grows dark and cold and heavy, and falls like grey snow in thick layers over the land. Then the world is all muffled and numb, and no one can hear each other or feel each other. Think how sad and lonely that must be."

"The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad."

"If everything you do is in order to do something else, when do you ever get to the end of it all?"

"That's where we have to go," said Kestrel, looking at the mountain. "Into the fire."

"She slapped Kestrel's face. Without thinking twice, Kestrel slapped her back, as hard as she could. The young woman burst into tears. The servant saw this, aghast. "Baby!" she exclaimed. "Oh, my poor baby!" "You've been kind to me," said Kestrel, "and you're very beautiful, but if you hit me again I'll kill you.""

"Today begins my walk with you." They spoke together, their voices sounding softly in the cold air. "Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise. I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand. And none shall come between us."

"I will win the crowd. I will give them something they have never seen before."

"She hasnt gone so far now, she had broken a lot of rules and said such rude things, that she knew she would suffer the most horrible punishment; and since what was done could not be undone, she was free to be as bad as she wanted to be."

""I wish there were no more exams ever," said Kestrel. "I wish nothing bad happens to Kess," said Bowman. "I wish my darling children to be safe and happy for ever," said their mother. She always wished like that when she was worried. "I wish the wind singer would sing again," said their father."

"The song of the wind singer will set you free."

"By god, D. H. Lawrence was right when he had said there must be a dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension between a man and a woman, and how else could this be achieved save in the long monotony of marriage?"