Short Story Writers From Wales

"As always, it was necessary to strike a balance between a cavalier disregard for the rules and a professional understanding that some rules were more flexible than others."

"Charm was what he excelled at. If anyone sensed his underlying shallowness, they usually mistook it for well-hidden great depth of character, like misinterpreting a radar bounce."

"“The Fascists got what they deserved,” Floyd said. “My husband lived long enough to see those monsters come to come to power. He saw through their lies and promises, but he also knew that they spoke to something nasty and squalid in the human spirit. Something in all of us. We want to hate those who are not like us. All we need is an excuse, a whisper in the ear.”"

"“Maybe it’s not as bad as she fears. Old people always think the world is going to ruin. It’s their job.” “Maybe they’re right,” Floyd replied."

"“There’s a catch,” Skellsgard said. “Another one? But of course there is. You know, I’m thinking I should start a collection.”"

"“The central defect of the human mind,” Custine said, “is its unfortunate habit of seeing patterns where none exist. Of course, that is also its chief asset.” “But sometimes a very dangerous one.”"

"Why was it never good news that put problems into perspective? Why did it always take another set of problems?"

"Naqi suspected that the ability to turn drunkenness on and off like a switch must be one of the most hallowed of diplomatic skills."

"For whatever reason, I am now fully conscious. Perhaps all beta-levels are capable of this, or perhaps my sheer connectional complexity ensured that I exceeded some state of critical mass. I have no idea. All I know is that I think, and therefore I’m exceedingly angry."

"“I don’t know.” That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed."

"“You look older, son.” “Yes, well, some of us have to get on with the business of being alive in the entropic universe.”"

"“A splendidly inept thing,” Sylveste said, nodding despite himself. “What?” “The human capacity for grief. It just isn’t capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn’t just level off—it just gives up, resets itself to zero. Admit it. None of us feel a damn about these people.”"

"It seemed that she had not so much misjudged the woman as assigned her to completely the wrong species."

"I was going to call it a mistake, but you could argue that there are no mistakes in war, only fortunate and less fortunate events."

"“How long have we been friends, Dan?” “I wouldn’t exactly call it friendship; more a kind of mutual parasitism.”"

"“You can hardly blame them.” “Assuming stupidity is an inherited trait, then no, I can’t.”"

"The new regime which had succeeded his after the coup had become as fragmentary as the old, in the time-honoured way of all revolutions."

"She wondered if she could put a dart in his eye. It would not kill him, but it might take the edge off his cockiness."

"“It’s all in the fine print. You should read it sometime.” “When I’m gripped by existential boredom,” Khouri said, “I might try it.”"

"“Are you sharpness personified?” Khouri poured herself a few final sips of coffee and then left the rest of it on the stove for when she got back. Coffee was her only vice, one acquired in her soldiering days on the Edge. The trick was to reach a knife-edge of alertness, but not be so buzzing that she could not point the weapon without shaking. “I think I’ve reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level, if that’s what you mean.”"

"In its purest distillation beauty had always been merciless."

"“Something worse.” After a silence Dreyfus said: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s always something worse.” “Yes. Odd that that should be what keeps us going, but there it is. We take our comforts where we may.”"

"“Imagine a permanent, shivering gloom, and never a moment without hunger, thirst and exhaustion. Imagine the constant fear of suffering illness or injury.” “You’ve just described nine-tenths of human history.”"

"All of it is physics, though, whether you are studying starlings or quarks."

"There’s nothing like a stupid, accidental death to remind you of the supreme futility of everything."

"“And what keeps you going, exactly?” “Insulting my friends. Making new ones, to compensate for the ones I already insulted just a bit too much. You’d be surprised how much work those activities demand of me—it’s practically a full-time occupation.” “In fairness, you’re getting very good at it.”"

"You owned the world when you were a young man, felt it like it was fashioned to fit your hands. You could do anything with it you wanted to. But the world kept changing, and sooner or later there came a day when it didn’t feel like you were the one the world was interested in any more."

"That was my plan. But there is an old saying about plans and war. I would have done well to heed it."

"It was the wrong approach. But it was the only way we—they—could see at the time. So we mustn’t mock them for their mistakes. In two hundred years, someone will be just as quick to mock us for ours, if we’re not careful."

"The universe always feels old, though. That’s a universal truth, a universal fact of life. It felt old for her, already cobwebbed by history. Hard for us to grasp, I know. Human civilisation, it’s just the last scratch on the last scratch on the last scratch, on the last layer of everything. We’re noise. Dirt. We haven’t begun to leave a trace."

"The only thing driving us on was greed. Fucking greed. The only thing in the universe stronger than fear."

"But you know what? I don’t care If transferring your anger onto me helps you, go ahead. I was the billionaire CEO of a global company. I was doing something wrong if I didn’t wake up with a million knives in my back."

"“You’re quite right: that theory is taken a bit less seriously.” “But it isn’t discredited, is it?” “You can’t discredit an untestable hypothesis.”"

"“Still don’t trust us?” “First rule of complex systems,” I said. “You can’t tell friends from enemies.”"

"Ghosts are not the souls of the dead, but the souls of people written out of history when history changes."

"Truth is truth, no matter who else believes it."

"Some people get it. Most people never will. But that’s art."

"“The old murals came from the heart,” Zima said. “I painted on a huge scale because that was what the subject matter seemed to demand.” “It was good work,” I said. “It was hack work. Huge, loud, demanding, popular, but ultimately soulless. Just because it came from the heart didn’t make it good.”"

"She rapped on for a while about how the nineties milieu was best addressed as a system of infections: sexual illnesses, rogue advertising slogans, computer viruses, proliferating junk mail…the kind of jive that had spread into all the glossy style magazines, as if, she mused, the viral paradigm was a metavirus in its own right."

"Loosen up. I need reverence like I need a skateboard."

"“Is he dead?” Irravel asked. “Depends what you mean by dead.”"

"Pretty smart piece of thinkware by all accounts: full Turing compliance; about as clever as you can make a machine before you have to start giving it human rights."

"War does strange things to truth."

"Grafenwalder shoots a sidelong glance at Ursula Goodglass, wondering what their marriage must be like. Clearly sex isn’t in the cards, but he doubts that it was ever the main interest in their lives. Games, especially those of prestige and subterfuge, are amongst the chief entertainments of the Rust Belt moneyed."

"You’ve been good to me, Inigo. But I really am like the weather. You can admire me, even love me, in your way, but I can’t love you back. To me you’re like a photograph. I can see right through you, examine you from all angles. You amuse me. But you don’t have enough depth ever to fascinate me."

"Is this a personal grudge or are you just psychotic?"

"“All right, Marius—I get the message. In fact I intercepted it, parsed it, filtered it, decrypted it with the appropriate onetime pad and wrote a fucking two-hundred-page report on it. Satisfied?” “I’m never satisfied, Mishenka. It just isn’t in my nature.”"

"“Only trying to make conversation, friend.” “Don’t bother—it’s an overrated activity at the best of times.”"

"Clavain had been a soldier. He had killed more people than he could remember, even though those days had been a long time ago. It was really a lot less difficult to do when you had a cause to believe in."

"Afterwards, when Clavain tried to imaging how he might describe it, he found that words were never going to be adequate for the task. And that was no surprise: evolution had shaped language to convey many concepts, but going from a single to a networked topology of self was not amongst them."