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Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia's inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.

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Combustion is the hidden principle behind every artifact we create. The making of a fish-hook, manufacture of a china cup, or production of a television program, all depend on the same process of combustion. Like our bodies and like out desires, the machines we have devised are possessed of a heart which is slowly reduced to embers. From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminance growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade away. For the time being, our cities still shine through the night, and the fires still spread.

Terry Pratchett posted:

If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!'

rear end-penny posted:

Iain Banks posted:

‘May our friendship be long and our wars be short!’ Fivetide squeezed the fluid into his mouth beak.

‘So short you could miss them entirely,’ Genar-Hofoen said tiredly, more because it was the sort of thing a Culture ambassador was supposed to say rather than because he sincerely meant it. Fivetide snorted derisively and dodged briefly to one side, apparently attempting to stick one tentacle-end up the anus of a passing Fleet Captain, who wrestled the tentacle aside and snapped his beak aggressively before joining in Fivetide’s laughter and exchanging the heartfelt hellos and thunderous tentacle-slaps of dear friends

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I want to put a bullet between the eyes of every last panda that won't gently caress to save their own species. I want to breathe smoke.

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The sailormen had plenty of time to depress their hearers, already low in their spirits because of the unnatural death of Henry Gouges (had said, "Ha, ha, mates, I am fifty years old this day. Oh dear" and had died sitting there, still holding his untasted grog)

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Her cave is surrounded by thick woodlands, apparently, which sounded so much like a euphemism when the bard first sang it that I threatened to have him flogged.

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And Calypso seems to have been the perfect hostess, so long as you overlook the part where you are - and it seems almost quaint that I still remember this - my husband, and not hers.

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The pure bourgeois in a state of social ferment. There was that typical costive, haemorrhoidal facies, the knock-knees, the drooping shoulders, the flat feet splayed out, the ill breath, the large staring eyes, the meek complacency