Mike Carey Quotes

Fear is a serviceable tool, I suppose. Like the stalls in a battery farm. If you want to keep people from their collective strength, make them too afraid of each other to ever meet or talk.

All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made from light and fire. And they lift our hearts out of the dust, and out of the grave.

The right idea at the right time is like a dandelion...You may hack it down, but you only spread the seeds abroad.

You move on. You move back. On because you're always getting older, back because there's always a set of habits and routines to catch you and suck you back in when your guard is down.

But Tom was not thinking about magic or struggle or the rest of his journey.

He was enjoying the game and the bright sun, and his heart was a child's heart.

But then, all grownup's hearts are children's hearts inside, if you can only find the catch that opens them.

It was a hot, moist armpit of a night...

But Susan didn't have a yellow pages, so she'd gone online instead, and Juliet's Web site had been the first to come up. I wasn't surprised. It was sometimes the first to come up when your search string was "Chinese restaurants" or "plumbers." I was pretty sure she'd done something to Google that was both illegal and supernatural.

Have you never fantasized about facing him as an equal?

I'm not going to heal. Not if healing means shrugging your shoulders and saying 'Life goes on'. Life doesn't go on.

An excellent indie horror book with a wholly original premise.

The time of human domination on Earth is barely a drop in the ocean of geological time, and it takes a lot to make a ripple in that ocean.

On into the void he flies, unafraid. There is nothing in mere absence that can cow him. Or loneliness. Or the lack of maps and charts. For he is his own path. And he sees by his own light. We watch him from a great distance. From a vantage point no less subjective, no less absolute. And so it's hard to tell whether he imposes himself on the emptiness, or becomes it.

I think Louisville will be fired up for this game. They might be in revenge mode. But, this time of the year records, don't mean much. Anything can happen.

Nothing matters more than the stories we tell ourselves to explain the world.

I learn about how stories work for the same reason that soldiers learn how to strip a rifle.

You should, too.

Men, women, children - all have souls. Tables. Rocks. Wheels. Cups. All likewise have souls. Spirit lives in matter. All matter. Where else would it live?

needs must when the devil drives

You know what pulp is, Mr. Tallis? It's the flesh of a luscious fruit, mashed down into an incredible, half liquid richness. so saturated with flavor that it fills your whole body, not just your mouth.

Gabriel: This is a *travesty* of justice.
Michael: Justice is my father's prerogative. The rest of us ...
Lucifer: The rest of us can only do what we think is *right*.

The trouble is, writing the damn thing is like unscrewing your skull and pouring the contents of your brain into an empty tank. The tank has a shape, more or less - has more or less defined edges, a bottom and sides. But what it mostly has is volume: a hungry space I've somehow got to fill.

The world seems to work in predictable ways, and you think you see the pattern. But that's fatal. Because it's only a pattern until you meet the first event that doesn't fit. And by then it's too late. By then, all the tricks you've learned to deal with the world -- well, they just don't work anymore.

And there's a darker side to Peckham, too, once you get in deep: a side I like a lot more, because I identify with the past and prefer even worm-eaten wood to wipe-clean plastic.

I took a strong dislike to him right then to save time and effort later.

You use the word "Infinity" very glibly ... Have you ever been there? Time and space are extensions of the mind, the will. Which means that infinity is a purely local phenomenon. You can turn over a stone and find it crawling there. Or you can make it yourself out of whatever materials are at hand.

Grudging praise is the most flattering of all.

Mona: "There's this girl who's following me around. I've been trying to lose her."
Elaine: "Black hair and amazing eye shadow, right? You can't lose her, Mona. But you're okay if we stick together. Anyone who's with me she sort of ignores.

It wasn't what I was expecting, but like I've always said: if life gives you lemmings, jump off a cliff.

You know what it's like to *lose* yourself in a story. We have brother and sister *souls*.

That's what I've never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any day of the week; at least you can play chicken with him and know he'll stick to the rules.

Yahweh: You've been unhappy because you've desired things that cannot be.
Lucifer: That's what desire IS. The need for what we can't have. The need for what's readily available is called greed.

So what I'm getting at is this. Okay, maybe it's cold in the grave. Maybe you come out of the light and you think, Fuck your mother, this is bad. This is worse than anything I would have guessed. But the trick is to clench your teeth, get a running start and dive.
When I hit that other country, from whose bourne no traveller back-pedals, I'm going to be moving fast. I'm gambling that the first ten seconds or so will be the worst.

No, there are no special places in hell. Hell is a democracy.

The key fob played the first bar of Für Elise as I locked the car up. I hoped that Beethoven's ghost was out there somewhere, making the night hideous for the managing director of Ford's.

I know that if a team had a derogatory name for African Americans, I would help those who helped extinguish that name. I have quite a few friends who are Native Americans. And even if I didn't have Native American friends, the name of the team is disrespectful.

Could it hurt to take a look? The answer was yes, of course. It's always yes. But I went anyway.

Michael: There's nothing here to fear.
Lucifer: Well, there's always the truth.

Dragons were a problem sometimes, but they only came on Tuesdays, so you could work around them.

Happy Families. What's that all about, eh? A bloody busted flush is what it is. You surround yourself with other people so the night doesn't seem quite so dark. Shout down the sound of the wind with arguments about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Best not to kid yourself. Best not to give any hostages to fortune. You're on your own in the end. Always. Where else would you want to be?

Stifling an obscene oath, I went back up the steps at a run, but I was locking the stable when the horse was already at the airport with a false passport.

I could dodge the kick, but the stable door was already down - and I hadn't even realised it until I saw the splinters.

They used to call the devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to hell.

I have stared into the light and you are all my shadows.

At least the smoke would give me a little cover; it was also choking me, making my eyes water and my lungs ache and spasm with each breath, but you can't have everything.

And for Peter ... well, sometimes cruelty is kindness in disguise. Sometimes pain is the best teacher. Sometimes it does you no harm to realize that there's a limit to what you can get away with.

Nothing is immune to Time. Not even eternity.

You're a vampire, Richie. And I've got a gun the size of Nebraska. What's the worst that could happen?

Human beings take social stances, and if you're respectful of all human beings, you have to decide what you're going to do and why you're going to do it.

You know, I'm like Avis rent-a-car: Because I'm insignificant, I try harder.

And send not to ask for whom the fucking bell tolls, because you're not going to like the answer.

The only consolation was that - to the religious mind - adversity is good for the soul.

My mum's getting married," said Cheryl. "Again. At the Brompton Oratory. Fourth time around the track, this is. They don't say 'Till death us do part' for my mum; they say 'Who's holding ticket number twenty-three?

Some kind of worship of the state, as though the state was somehow different from the schmucks who run it. Can't say I'm keen.

I was tied to this place by the loose elastic of ancient guilt, and every so often the pull became too insistent to ignore.

There *is* no mortal sin. There are only *souls*, lost in a maze that someone *else* has made for them.

Beliefs are collars to which leashes can be attached

Steven lets go of his humanity with much more relief than fear. It was an awkward burden to carry at the best of times.

I will withhold death from you as long as you obey my one command. Bow down to no one. Worship no one. Not even me. Do you understand?

The world is a book. Some words stand out from the page.