Home > Work > Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1)
1 " I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured would be the end of the game. "
― Paolo Bacigalupi , Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1)
2 " Crew up, Nailer!" Lucky Girl shouted. "You think I'm going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank? "
3 " Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade. "
4 " It’s human nature to tear one another apart. Be glad you come from such a successful line of killers. "
5 " Blood is not destiny. "
6 " You're afraid to gamble even when you're already dead "
7 " Family. It was just a word…Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant…It was a thing everyone had an opinion about—that it was all you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn’t more reliable than marriages or friendships…maybe less…The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. "
8 " She was too smart for his own good. "
9 " We waste all our money throwing dice, trying to get close to Luck, trying to get the big win... To help us find something we can keep for ourselves. "
10 " Her whispering lips brushed his ear.She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God...she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum Karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering...He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling. "
11 " It was one of those things everyone had an opinion about—that it was what you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was always there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of those words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and think they could get away with it. Family wasn’t any more reliable than marriages or friendships or blood-sworn crew, and maybe less. "
12 " Nailer smiled bitterly in the acrid wind. That was what thinking about clipper ships got you. A lungful of smoke because you weren't paying attention to what was around. "
13 " Blood is not destiny, no matter what others may believe. "
14 " Why did they give up?” Nailer asked. “Sometimes people learn,” Tool said. From that, Nailer took him to be saying that mostly people didn’t. The wreckage of the twin dead cities was good evidence of just how slow the people of the Accelerated Age had been to accept their changing circumstances. "
15 " The man had become more unpredictable as he worked less on the crews and worked more in the shadow world of the beaches, as his drugs whittled him down to a burning core of violence and hungers. "
16 " Fates he was tired. "
17 " The only reason you think you’ve got morals is because you don’t need money the way regular people do. "
18 " The wealthy measure everything with the weight of their money. "
19 " A whole waterlogged world of optimism, torn down by the patient work of changing nature. "
20 " The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies. "