Simon R. Green Quotes

I always feel most alive when everything else is dying all around me

A private face behind every public mask, a hidden meaning peeking through whatever words they choose to share with you.

They're currently sulking, by the way, and comforting themselves by sending abusive e-mails to Bill Gates.

He has also worked as a shop assistant, bicycle-repair mechanic, journalist, actor, eccentric dancer, and mail-order bride. He has never worked for MI5. Don't believe anyone who tel s you otherwise. He is, however, secretly Superman.

To show a mask and mirror to the world, and never let them see you're hurting.

When all else fails, you can always damn yourself with a necessary evil, for the greater good.

Books can be terrible snobs.

Strangefellows's owner and bartender was a thin pale streak of misery who only wore black because no-one had come up with a darker colour yet.

My mother turned out to be a Biblical Myth; from that part of the Old Testament where God gets really angry.

They burn down Satanist churches, perform exorcisms on politicians, and they once crucified a street mime. Upside down. And then they set fire to him. A lot of people applauded.

If you don't trust anyone, they can't let you down.

Who's got my Jaffa Cakes? You know I can't function without Jaffa Cakes.

The only good hero is the kind who survives to talk about merchandising.

Many of the self-styled prophets recognised me, and made the sign of the cross at me. Some made the sign of the extremely cross, and shook hand-made charms and fetishes at me.

We are in the dark places of the earth," said Madman. "Where all the ancient and most dangerous secrets are kept. There are Old Things down here, sleeping all around us, in the earth and in the living rock, and in the spaces between spaces. Keep your voices down. Some of these old creatures sleep but lightly, and even their dreams can have force and substance in our limited world. We have come among forgotten gods and sleeping devils, from the days before the world settled down and declared itself sane.

Sit down and shut up," said Melody. "You volunteered for this." Happy looked at her. "I did? When?" "When I told you to," said Melody. "Oh, well, that's all right then," said Happy. He sat down.

I looked down at the Nightside, spread out before me like the most seductive whore in the world. Promising everything and anytthing, her wide smile and inviting eyes hiding the cold calculation in her heart.

This is Nightside," said Deadboy. "We do ten impossible things before breakfast, just fora cheap thrill. Abandon all taboos, ye who enter here.

Keep your mind too open, and you never know what might walk in.

This is like when we have an argument," Happy said to Melody. "And you go stomping around the room, being mad at me but refusing to say what's wrong because I'm supposed to know. And I never do.

The doors of Hell are never bolted or barred, to those who belong there.

Sometimes you can't save everyone. Sometimes all you can do ... is kill a whole bunch of people.

Wait. You've got principles? We'll have to update your file.

You put butter in a pocket watch and it's bound to mess up the works even if it is the very best butter.

Never get attached to possessions ... . They're just things and you can always get more things.

I want a gun, Happy said immediately. "A really big gun. I want a fully functioning Death Star gun."
"Not even if Godzilla himself were to show up," said JC.

There's nothing like a major emergency and the almost certain death of the whole damned world to concentrate the mind wonderfully.

I saw myself as a knight-errant ... but the damsel in distress stabbed me in the back, my sword shattered on the dragon's hide, and my grail turned out to be the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

He always had some experiment or another on the go, usually involving boiling liquids and unpleasant smells. Always something bubbling in the cauldron or cooking in the small stone oven. One wall was hidden behind rows of metal cages, set one upon the other; containing animals and birds and reptiles and a few other things not so easily identified. Because you never knew when you'd need a subject to try something out on. And of course there were shelves and shelves of glass jars, holding herbs and insect parts, mandrake root and other disturbing things. Some of the things in the jars were still moving. Because alchemy's like that.

Nothing is hidden, nothing is ever lost, nothing is ever forgotten. That's always been part of my problem.

Worship Me Like the Goddess I Am or There Will Be Some Serious Smiting.
Jubilee

I had to smile. "How can you not approve of gods when you are one?" He sniffed. "I never asked to be worshipped. Feared, yes." "That's how most religions start. Eddie, the Street is in danger, and so am I.

Not that far away, Ms. Fate, the Nightside's very own leather-costumed transvestite superheroine, was dancing on a tabletop with demon girl reporter Bettie Divine.

Paranoid? Why do you want to know?

I'll say this for the man: He never had any problems thinking big. Thinking rationally and responsibly, yes, major problems there ...

Are you sure this is a good idea?' whispered the unicorn.
'No,' said Rupert. 'But it's our best chance to find a dragon.'
'Frankly, that doesn't strike me as such a hot idea either,' muttered the unicorn.

You know how it is, boss; you're out on the town with a few friends, drinking it up; you're young, you've got incendiaries ... shit happens.

What the hell are you doing here? You weren't on the guest list. Hell, you people aren't on anybody's guest list. If you turned up at a funeral, the corpse would walk out on you.

Dropped in from a possible future via a Timeslip, and was currently trying to mend his left leg with a pair of pliers and a sonic screwdriver someone had left behind in the bar. I

I didn't know if I still had it in me to be really dangerous, but I thought so. It's like knocking someone off a bike with a baseball bat; you never really lose the knack.

And we all have the right to go to Hell in our own way.

It's only a short step from a burning bush to a burning heretic, after all. I try not to bother God, and hope He'll do me the same courtesy.

You can always rely on a woman to fight dirty, I said, and all the other men nodded solemnly in unison - until

with a whim of iron.

Never go anywhere without condiments. Condiments are our friends.

I am large. I contain multitudes," I said solemnly. "Especially on Tuesdays.

I chose to help people, because there'd been no-one there to help me when I needed it.

Honor and duty will ride upon my shoulders till the day I die, like the old man of the sea, who once picked up can never be put dow.

The harsh, unyielding reality of having to compromise your ideals bit by bit, day by day, just to achieve a few little victories in the face of the world's malice, or indifference. Until sometimes you wonder if there's nothing left of you but the shell of the man you intended to be, just going through the motions because you've nothing better to do.

The next few rooms held a severed hand that was trying to grow itself a new body; a Time Agent whose latest regeneration had gone terribly wrong, turning him inside out; and a sorry-looking werewolf with mange.

See, phrenology is this old Victorian science, which claimed you could determine the dominant traits of a man's personality by studying the bumps on his head. The size and position of these bumps indicated different personality traits. See? Now, /retro-phrenology/ says, why not change a man's personality by hitting him on the head with a hammer, till you raise just the right bumps in the right places!"
"One of us needs a lot more drinks," said Alex. "That's starting to make sense.

And a quartet of fuzzy post-nuclear mutants were showing each other strange alien porn on the televisions they had implanted in their stomachs.

When you are tired of life, come to Haven. And someone will kill you.

Would you really have ... ?" said Julien.
"Almost certainly," I said. "I have deep-seated problems with authority figures."
"But you are one!"
"I know! I can only assume the universe has a really mean sense of humour.

The past is what we make of it, if we know what's is good for us.

I could have been a contender, if I'd cared enough.

I feel I should point out that I do not mix cocktails or provide helpful advice to those who find themselves in a bit of a pickle; and neither do I untangle emotional difficulties. I just buttle. (The Butler in The Dark Side of the Road)

And ... by the pricking of my thumbs, something morally ambiguous this way comes.

What's one more crazy thing in the midst of all this weirdness?

This isn't Hell, it's the Nightside. Thought sometime you can see Hell from here.

Who ... what are they?"
"My pride and glory," Alex said fondly. "Betty and Lucy Coltrane. Best damned bouncers in the business. Though of course I'd never tell them that. Fiercer than pit bulls and cheaper to run. Married to each other. They had a dog once, but they ate it.

You know, sometimes I swear the whole universe runs on irony.

It was years since I'd last been here, a lifetime. It was yesterday.

I love to dance!" she said cheerfully.
"Sometimes I think the whole world should be put to music and choreographed!"
"This being the Nightside, someone somewhere is undoubtedly working on that very thing, right now.

I'm exempt from anything I damned will feel like on the grounds that I'll kick anyone's ass who says otherwise.

Big corporations aren't always the bad guys; but it's the sensible way to bet.

I've known what it feels like, when your whole life hurts so much that you're ready to die, just for the pain to stop. A little less stubbornness, a little more resolve at certain moments, and I might have been one of these poor trapped souls...

You want me to sneak up on an angel and rip out its pinfeathers, so you can make a fashion statement?

Love is for the living, for people who have a stake in the future.

Isn't the ambience growing on you?"
"If it does, I'll scrape it off.

Though I often run out of courage and good sense, stubbornness keeps me going.

It's tucked away in a quiet corner, shadowed and obscured, no part of the Nightside's usual bright gaudy neon noir. It doesn't advertise and it doesn't care if you habitually pass by on the other side. It's just there for when you need it. Dedicated to the patron saint of lost causes, St. Jude's is an old old place ... St. Jude's isn't a place for comfort for frills and fancies and the trappings of religion. just a place where you can talk to your god and sometimes get an answer.

His razor flashed once, briefly, and the zealot cried out in agony as he was instantly and expertly circumsized.
"You can go now," said Razor Eddie, and the zealot ran, howling all the way down the Street. And everyone who'd been watching went about their business again.
"Well," I said, trying to keep it light. "At least he's not a complete prick anymore.

Last night I dreamed I was still human, but now I have woken up, into something better. Farewell, my friends, farewell.

Angel: And what will you do with the world, once it is yours?'
N. Hob: 'Punish it, for not loving me.

faced some strange

Ghosts are the only ones who never have to feel scared. Because the worst thing in the world has already happened to them.

The Necropolis furnaces ran full-time, and a lot of restaurants boasted a Soylent Green special on their menus, for the more discerning palates.

I've been here a long time," I said finally. "But I think what I truly believe in is people. They can always surprise you. They have such potential . . . They can change and grow and become so much more than they or anyone else would ever have thought possible. Unlike gods. And at the end of the day, I believe that people should be kind to each other.

Men," said Suzie. "Why don't you just get them out and measure them?

Sometimes humour is all we have to say the things that can't be said.

No damned thing from the vasty deeps is going to get the better of me in my own home.

Though we nearly lost everything last month, when the mainframe got possessed by Sumerian demons, and we had to call in a technodruid to exorcise it. I'd never heard language like that before, and even after it was all over, the office still smelled of burning mistletoe for weeks. And I might add that the computer Helpline people were no bloody use at all.

Be good, my dears, and if you can't be good don't do it in front of witnesses!

Revenge is simply justice with teeth.

No-one's used a wand in the Nightside for centuries. Wands went out with black cats and pointy hats. (All right, the Faerie Court still use them, but the Fae have always been weird.)

There's something up ahead,' I said. 'Something really bad.' 'So of course we're heading straight for it,' said Penny. 'At some point, we're going to have to sit down and have a serious talk about making better lifestyle decisions.

She might not have the same survival instincts as us.' 'It's amazing,' said Jeeves. 'You keep talking and you keep coming up with things, and yet not one of them is ever remotely comforting.' 'It's a gift,' I said.

I'd never seen so many Goths in one place. All dark clothes and brooding faces, like a gathering of small thunderclouds.

But watch where you step, I don't want any clues trampled on.' 'I will trample on your soft and delicate bits if you patronize me again,' said Penny. I looked at MacKay. 'It's true. She would.

What is the world coming to, when you can't even trust a rogue vicar and her demon lover?

Toby had spent three years living in the East End of London, back when he was a student, an area that would have profited greatly from a heavily armed UN Peacekeeping force. Lacking the funds necessary to reach the more civilized areas of London, toby endured three very long years ...

Just because we protect the world, it doesn't mean the world is always grateful.

There has been peace. There will be peace again. But right now, we have work to do.

Families – can't live with them – can't take them down to the river and drown them all in sacks.

Every day there's something which makes me think 'I'd better ask Dad about that, I wonder what
Mother would say…' and then I remember, and the day seems a little colder.

While the cat's away, you may find the rats getting damned uppity.

Most of my relatives could start a fight in an empty room and then lie about who won.

Madness is when all your nightmares have come true and you just don't care anymore.

Passwords are for wimps, too," said Melody. "You have to know how to talk to these things. Okay... They started the latest drug trial last evening. Code name, Zarathustra. Oh, shit. That is not good. Whenever some scientist starts quoting Nietzsche, you know it is never going to be good.