Kate Griffin Quotes

It seems to me that the greatest triumph of any human rights movement, be it fighting for racial, religious, sexual or gender equality – is to achieve that moment where eyes are opened so wide that a sort of blindness sets in. I don't care if someone is black, white, gay or straight. I don't care if a woman has children or no – I just want to know who they are. [...] At the end of the day, gender differences seem to me to be just a tiny, tiny drop in the great expanse of things that make people unique. Unique, not 'different', not 'other' merely another piece of that great teaming mass that makes up the wonderfully rich, thrillingly varied definition of 'humanity'."

[Playing Butch: Blog entry, February 24, 2014]

It was not the flesh we would have chosen, but I had long since given up dreams of resembling anyone from the movies and, with the pragmatism of the perfectly average, come to realise that this was me and that was fine.

Little Lion Street was presumably named after an incident hundreds of years ago which concerned something little and almost certainly involved a street but, Rhys felt, had in no way included a lion.

You know, yeah, it seems to me like there are two kinds of chosen one. There's the kinda who gets chosen for a thing without any say, like someone who gets picked- kings and queens and shit. Then there's the other kind of chosen one; the guy who stands up when everyone else is afraid, when no one else can decide. Guy who chooses to fight, or do the thing that no one else will, 'cause it has to be done, yeah? I mean, most times, that guy's a total shit. And sometimes he's the hero. Seems to me that you're a bit of both.

It was an excellent coat. It was long, grey, suspiciously blotched, smelt faintly of dust and old curries, went all the way down to my knees and overhung my wrists even when I stretched out my arms. It had big, smelly pockets, crunchy with crumbs, it boasted the remnants of a waterproof sheen, was missing a few buttons, and had once been beige. It was the coat that detectives down the ages had worn while trailing a beautiful, dangerous, presumably blond suspect in the rain, the coat that no one noticed, shapeless, bland and grey - it suited my purpose perfectly.

I like walking. Each step is a thought without words, a thought without words is a thought without blame, without retribution, without consequence.

Even if you've no idea where you're going, you have to look like you do. It's what keeps the locals different from the strangers.

Whoever had said in the guidebooks that the bum bag was a sensible device against theft had lied; no single item of dressware ever invented cried out "mug me" more than a pouch of zip-up plastic suspended by your groin.

You've seen Star Wars?'
'Seen it and denounced it.'
'You've denounced Star Wars?'
She looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Hollywood should not glorify witches.'
'I think you've missed the point ... '
'I also denounced Harry Potter.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'Because ... '
' ... because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches.'
'Oda, what do you do for fun?'
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humour, 'I denounce things.

A small child being dragged to bed peered curiously at me as it passed, then waved. We waved back, not being entirely sure how else to respond to small creatures like that.

We ran, as graceful as a burst beetroot.

We ... find it hard to conceive of ... of a consciousness whose power, intellect and capacity can be both infinite and capable of caring," we replied. "We find it hard to accept that there is an unknown thing set above us, to judge us, that we cannot judge in return. Such a concept is, it would appear to us, injustice incarnate, not redemption at all.

Are you aware, Mr Mayor, then when casually scrying the streets of London, you stand out like a giraffe on roller skates, yes?

Sharon spoke slowly and carefully. It was, she'd found, the best way to create an illusion of shamanly wisdom, as people often mistook cautious speech for being thoughtful instead of panic-struck.

Magic is life,' and that's not quite right. You think that the study of magic, the understanding of it, gives you some sort of better grasp of life. Unfortunately, even I worked out that this isn't quite true; it's a bit skewed, see? We understand this. Magic is not life. Life is magic. Even the boring, plodding, painful, cold, cruel parts, even the mundane automatic reflexes, heart pumping, lungs breathing, stomach digesting, even the uninteresting dull processes of walking, swinging the knees and seeing with eyes, this is magic. This is what makes magic.

I looked at Judith. "This sounds strange, but I don't suppose you saw three mad women with a cauldron of boiling tea pass by this way?"
"No," she replied. The polite voice of reasonable people scared of exciting the madman.
"Flash of light? Puff of smoke? Erm ... " I tried to find a polite way of describing the symptoms of spontaneous teleportation without using the dreaded "teleportation" word. I failed. I slumped back into the sand. What kind of mystic kept a spatial vortex at the bottom of their cauldrons of tea anyway?

There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human.

The whole calamity would be in one of those police reports that D. B. Sinclair and his "concerned citizens" filed carefully under "T" for "Things" at the back of a locked filing cabinet in the vehicle-licensing centre a day before a bonfire got accidentally out of control.

The exorcist had a slightly Australian tinge to his voice, and the laid-back, whatever-comes-next attitude of a man who had suddenly realised two degrees short of a sunstroke that exorcism was the perfect career choice he'd never been offered in school.

It's the new me," I explained, waving my hands jazz-style in greeting. "Matthew Swift, Midnight fucking Mayor - I've got multicoloured highlighters and everything.

We burn because of the beauty in the burning, because life is precious, extraordinary, and we would live as if we were on fire with the brightness of it.

Nine times out of ten I've no idea what I'm saying and I'm only ever nice to people because I don't have the charisma or the knowledge or any of that to get away with witty put-downs,

Ley lines exist but, like all of magic, they are formed where life is thickest, and where meaning is imposed by man. Life is magic; magic grows where there is most life.

Are you really going to ask such inane questions all the time? Mystic bloody forces; just accept them and cope!

You are deliberately being cryptic," she exclaimed. "Why?" "Because I don't like you.

They had grown bored with ordinary living and needed to seek out this new thrill to make up for the mundanities of existence. And

Someone says 'inauguration' in my line of work, and you can just bet there'll be freaky shit. It's like quests. You get told to 'go forth and seek the travelcard of destiny' and you know, I mean, you seriously know that it won't have just been left down the back of the sofa.

Offer me?" A shrill note of indignation entered her voice. "Young man, there are three things that make Britain great. The first is our inability at playing sports."
How does that make Britain great?"
"Despite the certainty of loss, we try anyway with the absolute conviction that this year will be the one, regardless of all evidence to the contrary!"
I raised my eyebrows, but that simply meant I could see my blood more clearly, so looked away and said nothing.
"The second," she went on, "is the BBC. It may be erratic, tabloid, under-funded and unreliable, but without the World Service, obscure Dickens adaptions, the Today Program and Doctor Who, I honestly believe that the cultural and communal capacity of this country would have declined to the level of the apeman, largely owing to the advent of the mobile phone!"
"Oh," I said, feeling that something was expected. "Oh" was enough.
"And lastly, we have the NHS!"
"This is an NHS service?" I asked incredulously.
"I didn't say that, I merely pointed out that the NHS makes Britain great. Now lie still.

We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free!

My name is Matthew Swift. I'm a sorcerer, the only one in the city who survived Robert Bakker's purge. I was killed by my teacher's shadow and my body dissolved into telephone static and all they had left to bury was a bit of blood. Then we came back, and I am we and we are me, and we are the blue electric angels, creatures of the phones and the wires, the gods made from the surplus life you miserable excuse for mortals pour into all things electric. I am the Midnight Mayor, the protector of the city, the guardian of the night, the keeper of the gates, the watcher on the walls. We turned back the death of cities, we were there when Lady Neon died, we drove the creature called Blackout into the shadows at the end of the alleys, we are light, we are life, we are fire and, would you believe it, the word that best describes our condition right now is cranky.
Would you like to see what happens when you make us mad?

Coincidence is usually mentioned only when something good happens. Whenever it's something bad, it's easier to blame someone, something.

Between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, I broke into a total of six offices, one penthouse suite and a small bank, and cursed them all. I cursed the stones they were built on, the bricks in their walls, the paint on their ceilings, the carpets on their floors. I cursed the nylon chairs to give their owners little electric shocks, I cursed the markers to squeak on the whiteboard, the hinges to rust, the glass to run, the windows to stick, the fans to whir, the chairs to break, the computers to crash, the papers to crease, the pens to smear; I cursed the pipes to leak, the coolers to drip, the pictures to sag, the phones to crackle and the wires to spark. And we enjoyed it.

When we blaze, when we fight, when we rejoice, then I am all us, for that is all we are. When I am ... afraid ... we do not understand, do not like these things. We are me. It is ... frightening, having to be me.

For life is magic, magic is life, the left-over life we don't even notice we're living.

Give me back to us!

Mortals building things the same in the hope that conformity will set them free.

Always be polite to possible murderers: that was the twenty-four-hour-shopping philosophy.

Between nowhere in particular and somewhere less than distinct.

Me?" Penny's voice, surprised. "Well, I'm Penny Ngwenya, Matthew's butt-kicking, life-saving, totally awesome apprentice. Um. Hi.

When humans work, they frequently become unaware of their own body, their own senses, are surprised to find that their wrists ache or their backs are sore or their friend has left the building. It's as close to an out-of-body experience as can be achieved short of fifty volts, a circle of warding, a pigeon's claw cut from an albino female of purest white feathers, or a lot of mushrooms.

I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We ... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us.

So ... I suggest you try and get control over your more unusual nature, see if you can't coax those claws away, and I'll try very, very hard not to throw up over what's left of your shoes. How does that sound?

I hesitated. Truth shot a sly glance at expediency, expediency waggled its eyebrows significantly, truth made a little noise at the back of its throat, and expediency jumped straight on in there.

Because you had to see it, to believe it.

I'm a little vague on the details but aren't doughnuts just the most marvellous thing to ever come out of organised religion?

She would have liked a drink, but staying awake was proving a challenge and somehow, she felt, as deputy Midnight Mayor she was still on duty. So she cradled an orange juice, whose contents were two parts ice to five parts acid to one part remnant of the colour orange, and trod on her own toes under the table in an effort to remain awake.

We were beginning to understand why, in pre-anaesthetic days, the Bible had stipulated that suicide was a sin. Anything other than the prospect of eternal damnation, and the human race would probably have done away with itself at the first sign of the dentist.

At least with magical portals and mystic byways, you had a reasonably good chance that economics and time constraints confined the journey to just a few minutes of scrambling around through geographically unsound temporal mists. In the small hours of the morning, the air cold and damp, and the sun not yet even a glow on the eastern horizon, it was more of a challenge to get back using nothing more than the urban travel infrastructure.

The dream state just before wakening when it seems perfectly logical for the goldfish not to like peeling its own potatoes on the bus.

Men don't ask other men if they're getting home OK, they just assume that beneath the frail, weak exterior lurks a muscle-building kung fu master fearless of ever being mugged.

You want to know a secret?"
"Always."
"My real name is Dave."
"I see."
"This doesn't seem to amuse you."
"I met Jeremy the troll a few nights ago."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Also known as the Mighty Raaaarrggh! Although ... I can sorta see why you changed the name. 'Dave' isn't knwon for its mysterious, mystic sexiness.

Where there is life, there will be magic; the one generates the other.

When last I checked, you were a sorcerer, not a Jedi."
"You've seen Star Wars?"
"Seen it and denounced it."
"You've denounced Star Wars?"
She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Hollywood should not glorify witches."
"I think you've missed the point ... "
"I also denounce Harry Potter."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Because ... "
" ... because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches."
"Oda, what do you do for fun?"
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humor, "I denounce things.

Never underestimate the ridiculous things that have been done in the name of religious-semantic obscurity.