And one of the reasons why he likes her is because she’s so different from him. She’s as big as four-fifths of five-eighths of fuck all, but she takes no bullshit from anyone. She even talks back to the Sarge, which is like watching a mouse bark at a Pitbull.

— M.R. Carey

Because the bag is full of colors - starbursts and wheels and whorls of dazzling brightness that are as fine and complex in their structures as the branch is, only much more symmetrical. Flowers.

— M.R. Carey

But the future is uncertain, and he can't get up enough enthusiasm even to masturbate.

— M.R. Carey

Even the air seems to have a smell - earthy and rich and complicated, made out of things living ND things dying and things long dead. The smell of the world where nothing stops moving, nothing stays the same.

— M.R. Carey

Every adult grew from a kid who beat the odds. But at different times, in different places, the odds have been appallingly steep.

— M.R. Carey

Holy fuck,' Corcoran said, leaning back against the wall. 'I am going home and drinking a whole bottle of Bacardi. Someone can pour the Coke into me after I pass out.

— M.R. Carey

In an age of rust, she comes up stainless steel

— M.R. Carey

In most stories she knows, children have a mother and a father, like Iphigenia had Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and Helen had Leda and Zeus. Sometimes they have teachers too, but not always, and they never seem to have sergeants.

— M.R. Carey

It all comes together inside her, and she can’t begin to explain. “It’s just a pattern,” she says, feeling bad because it’s a lie. She’s lying to Miss Justinian, who she loves more than anyone in the world. And of course the other part of the feeling, that’s even harder to say, is that they’re each other’s home now. They have to be.

— M.R. Carey

Jess wasn't religious. Not even a little bit. She thought all gods were basically big bully-boy cops dreamed up by people who wanted the laws they liked on Earth to be true everywhere else.

— M.R. Carey