Ian McGuire QUOTES

2 " The redundancy of flesh, he thinks, the helplessness of meat, how can we conjure spirit from a bone? "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

4 " It is not a sin, he tells himself, there is no sin left now, there is only the blood and the water and the ice; there is only life and death and the gray-green spaces in between. He will not die, he tells himself, not now, not ever. When he is thirsty, he will drink his own blood; when he is hungry, he will eat his own flesh. He will grow enormous from the feasting, he will expand to fill the empty sky. "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

6 " Cleverness, he thinks, will get you nowhere; it is only the stupid, the brilliantly stupid, who will inherit the earth. "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

8 " So you have no remorse for your actions? No guilt for what you’ve done?” Drax’s mouth lolls half open; he wrinkles up his nose and sniffs. “Did you think I was going to murder you down in the cabin?” he asks. “Split open your skull like I did Brownlee. Is that what you were thinking?” “What else were you intending?” “Oh, I don’t intend too much. I’m a doer, not a thinker, me. I follow my inclination.” “You have no conscience then?” “One thing happens, then another comes after it. Why is the first thing more important than the second? Why is the second more important than the third? Tell me that.” “Because each action is separate and distinct; some are good and some are evil.” Drax sniffs again and scratches himself. “Them’s just words. If they hang me, they will hang me ’cause they can, and ’cause they wish to do it. They will be following their own inclination as I follow mine.” “You recognize no authority at all then, no right or wrong beyond yourself?” Drax shrugs and bares his upper teeth in something like a grin. “Men like you ask such questions to satisfy themselves,” he says. “To make them feel cleverer or cleaner than the rest. But they int.” “You truly believe we are all like you? How is that possible? Am I a murderer like you are? Is that what you accuse me of?” “I seen enough killing to suspect I int the only one to do it. I’m a man like any other, give or take.” Sumner shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That I won’t accept.” “You please yourself, as I please myself. You accept what suits you and you reject what don’t. The law is just a name they give to what a certain kind of men prefer.” Sumner "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

10 " It is a grave mistake to think too much, he reminds himself, a grave mistake. Life will not be puzzled out, or blathered into submission; it must be lived through, survived, in whatever fashion a man can manage. Sumner "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

12 " I’ve brought the sufferings on myself, I’d say. I’ve made mistakes aplenty.” “Show me a man who hasn’t, and I will show you a saint or a great liar. And I haven’t met too many saints in my long lifetime.” The "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

14 " Why would you believe such things?” he asks. “What good does it do you?” “The world we see with our eyes is not the whole truth. Dreams and visions are just as real as matter. What we can imagine or think exists as truly as anything we can touch or smell. Where do our thoughts come from, if not from God?” “They come from our experience,” Sumner says, “from what we’ve heard and seen and read, and what’s been told to us.” Otto shakes his head. “If that were true, then no growth or advancement would be possible. The world would be stagnant and unmoving. We would be doomed to live our lives facing backwards. "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

16 " Time becomes memory, and memory becomes the ditch in which we drown. "

― Ian McGuire , The Abstainer

18 " Half the things in there he has never heard of: Tragacanth? Guaiacum? London Spirit? It's no wonder Brownlee thinks the "potions" don't work: most of this stuff is fucking Shakespearean. Was the previous surgeon some kind of a Druid? "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water

20 " What matters is what happens next. "

― Ian McGuire , The North Water