Kraken Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Kraken. Here they are! All 100 of them:

If you want to write a negative review, don't tickle me gently with your aesthetic displeasure about my work. Unleash the goddamn Kraken." [on Twitter, July 17, 2012]
Scott Lynch
The Kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.
Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
We had no idea what waited ahead of us, other than the big, fat unknown, and most likely a big, fat kick in the face. The gravity of that was killing me-killing us I squared my shoulders. "Release the Kraken!" Several sets of eyes settled on me. "What?" I gave a lopsided shrug. "I've always wanted to yell that since I saw that movie. Seemed like the perfect moment.
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Apollyon (Covenant, #4))
You died in your sleep? Drunk driver? Cancer,huh? World war? Well...yeah those deaths are great and all,but wait till I tell you what happened to me. Yeah...that's right...I said kraken.
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Voyage (The Tiger Saga, #3))
Any moment called now is always full of possibles.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Juno MacGuff: Wise move. I know this girl who had a huge crazy freakout because she took too many behavioral meds at once. She took off all her clothes and jumped into the fountain at Ridgedale Mall and she was like, "Blaaaaah! I'm a kraken from the sea!" Su-Chin: That was you.
Diablo Cody (Juno: The Shooting Script)
We should have just killed him, that's a lesson, don't get creative with revenge
China Miéville (Kraken)
Speak for yourself,” Murphy said. “I just gave my last grenade to a Valkyrie and ordered her to blow up a kraken. I’m having a ball.
Jim Butcher (Battle Ground (The Dresden Files, #17))
My Google-fu is strong.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Did you blow up a kraken?" "Maybe." He laughed into the phone.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Tides (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years, #1; Kate Daniels, #10.5))
Find a nice, self sufficient hilltop, and fortify it.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal." "Reznak? Why should I fear him?" Dany rose from the pool. Water trickled down her legs, and gooseflesh covered her arms in the cool night air. "If you have some warning for me, speak plainly. What do you want of me, Quaithe?" Moonlight shown in the woman's eyes. "To show you the way." "I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. "I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you-" "Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are." "The blood of the dragon." But my dragons are roaring in the darkness. "I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for . . ." "Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A Memory. No one.
George R.R. Martin (A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5))
I would parade you in the hall of the monarchs of the ocean if you could breathe water.
S.M. Wheeler (Sea Change)
I thought about the afterlife and wondered if people shared death stories. If so, i'd have the coolest story ever. You died in your sleep? Drunk driver? Cancer, huh? World War 2? Well... yeah, those deaths are great and all, but wit till I tell you what happened to me. Yeah... that's right... I said a kraken.
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Voyage (The Tiger Saga, #3))
He knows religion is bollocks," Collingswood said. "He just wishes he didn't.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Oh sweet kraken tits.
Kevin Hearne (A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings, #1))
Darling, whose book is this to be?" "Ostensibly yours, my sweet" "I see -- rather like my life since I met you?" "Yes darling
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Just thugs only ever got so far. The best thugs were all psychologists.
China Miéville (Kraken)
We cannot see the universe. We are in the darkness of a trench, a deep cut, dark water heavier than earth, presences lit by our own blood, little biolumes, heroic and pathetic Promethei too afraid or weak to steal fire but able still to love. Gods are among us and they care nothing and are nothing like us. This is how we are brave: we worship them anyway.
China Miéville (Kraken)
But this was not quite the right kraken apocalypse.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Gigi’s actual name was Jolene Kraken. If her penetralia was exposed, even Gigi herself would be surprised. She was smart, aloof, indifferent to the opinions of others. Maybe she was amoral. Maybe because self-analysis wasn’t her strong suit. Neither did self-analysis interest her. Her goal as a young woman was to make serious money, enough to set her up for a life in which she could romp and stomp through the world doing exactly what she wished. And frequently what she wished was to deliver justice to people with bad intentions. She wanted to hurt people who hurt people.
John M. Vermillion (Awful Reckoning: A Cade Chase and Simon Pack Novel)
Be not afraid of whirlpools, of strong winds, and murky waves. Fear the creature that dwells in the darkest depths, the ice-shackled Kraken, that threatens to surface and your soul to keep.
Erna Grcic (Beneath the Surface)
Subby Subby Subby," whispered Goss. "Keep those little bells on your slippers as quiet as you can. Sparklehorse and Starpink have managed to creep out of Apple Palace past all the monkeyfish, but if we're silent as tiny goblins we can surprise them and then all frolic off together in the Meadow of Happy Kites.
China Miéville (Kraken)
I might be small, but I have the lung capacity of a whale, so if you don’t move I’m gonna have to release the oral Kraken until the entire school is in this hallway rescuing me from you.” I crack up. “The oral Kraken? That sounds pretty dirty.” “I’m thinking everything sounds dirty to you,” she says dryly.
Erin Watt (Fallen Heir (The Royals, #4))
Art Nouveau was coil-envy.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Fortune-telling was quantum betting, a competitive scrying of variably likely outcomes.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Shit seemed to get crazy the moment I whipped out my dick, like unleashing the goddamn Kraken every time I unzipped my pants.
Keri Lake (Ricochet (Vigilantes, #1))
I'm a reliable witness, you're a reliable witness, practically all God's children are reliable witnesses in their own estimation--which makes it funny how such different ideas of the same affair get about.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.' 'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?' 'Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?' 'Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world.
China Miéville (Kraken)
I suppose a book is still a book, even if no one but the author and his wife reads it," she said.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Take the rudder, will you? Just stay in the middle of the fjord and watch out for krakens." "Krakens?" I protested. Halfborn nodded absently and went below, maybe to check on dinner, or Mallory and T.J., or simply because I smelled bad. By full dark we'd reached the open sea. I didn't crash the ship or release any krakens, which was good. I did not want to be that guy.
Rick Riordan (The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3))
The light was going: some cloud cover arriving, as if summoned by drama.
China Miéville (Kraken)
My protective coloration isn't intended to deceive you, my sweet. It is intended to deceive me.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
There must, I think, be a great many people who go around just longing to be baffled...
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
loose lips don’t merely sink ships, they summon krakens with too many tentacles.
Charles Stross (The Nightmare Stacks (Laundry Files, #7))
Back to nag me already? You seriously need to get yourself a hobby. I hear spelunking’s fun. Oooh, or you could try swimming with the krakens! I doubt they’d eat you—but maybe we’ll get lucky!
Shannon Messenger (Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8))
You got to be worried when they're agreeing about anything," she said. "Prophets. That's the last bloody thing you want prophets to do.
China Miéville (Kraken)
As he got older, Billy suspected, he would, Dicaprio-like, simply become like an increasingly wizened child.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Death isn't what it used to be
China Miéville (Kraken)
Pan," Hook said. "You saved my life." Peter didn't know what to say. He had gone back to rescue Hook so unthinkingly, so instinctually, that he was only now beginning to realize he had done it. He hadn't worried about a single thing besides protecting Hook. He cast around for a reason—an excuse, not the real reason, which he already knew. "I had to," he said finally. "If you'd died there, I wouldn't have been the one to defeat you." Hook gave a low chuckle. "Your obsession is flattering, Pan. And I share it." "Obsession?" "Is that not what they call it," Hook said, "when two men can think of nothing but each other?" Peter went still, feeling his ears go hot at the implication. Hook knew, he thought. Hook knew exactly what Peter had felt before, when Hook had pinned him down. He sat there tongue-tied. The two of them didn't speak for some time, until the kraken's last cringing wails had receded and there was no sound but the shiver of the leaves. "Thank you," Hook said eventually. "I suppose I should have led with that.
Austin Chant (Peter Darling)
Dark came early and stayed full of lights and the shouts of children.
China Miéville (Kraken)
The ocean, after all, is not about stability but about change. Change is normal. Everything changes. All the time.
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
It says something about this relationship that I'm a cephalopod shifter, but you're the weird one.
M. Caspian (Kraken)
Aquí termina tu caza, aquí comienza la mía —dije en voz alta.
Eva García Sáenz de Urturi (El libro negro de las horas (Kraken #1))
As we look out to sea, a great shadow seems to move under the water. He can see it, says W. - 'Look: the kraken of your idiocy'. Yes, there it is, moving darkly beneath the water.
Lars Iyer (Spurious)
As a race, we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to the idea that the proper way to die is in bed, at a ripe age. It is a delusion. The normal end for all creatures comes suddenly.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
I've stolen a shirt to wear since my clothing has gone missing. You may as well get used to living without it because there is no way I'm giving up a tee that says 'To unleash the Kraken is to unzip my pants.
Nikki Winter
Virgina Woolf versus Edward Lear." "Christ Alive," said Billy. "Are those my only choices?" "I went for Lear," said Leon. "Partly out of fidelity to the letter L. Partly because given the choice between nonsense and boojy wittering you blatantly have to choose nonsense.
China Miéville (Kraken)
At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross---at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.
Edgar Allan Poe (Manuscrito hallado en una botella)
How many color patterns can your severed arm produce in one second?
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
Everything's fit to be worshipped.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Cambrian animals were not particularly large at first, but they were plentiful and innovative. Jaws appeared. Eyes appeared. Nature began experimenting with weaponry.
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
Don't you sometimes wish that you had been born into the Age of Reason, instead of into the Age of the Ostensible Reason?
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Of all the skills necessary for her work, what she was perhaps worst at was being polite to inanimate things.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Just her, three men, a fidgety pig and lawful intent.
China Miéville (Kraken)
When you’re at rock bottom, sometimes the only thing to do is keep digging.
Katee Robert (The Kraken's Sacrifice (A Deal With a Demon, #2))
You're the match I choose, and that makes it perfect.
Lillian Lark (Stalked by the Kraken (Monstrous Matches, #1))
Your job is to get villains. Right? You'll have to know what to do. If you don't know, you have to find out. If you can't find out you bloody well make it up and then you make it so.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Dane discarded his speargun with visible relief. As a paladin of the Church of God Kraken, he had few options. Like many groups devoid of real power and realpolitik, the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough. It was a common moan. Drunk new soldiers of the Cathedral of the Bees might whine: “It’s not that I don’t think sting-tipped blowpipes aren’t cool, it’s just…” “I’ve gotten rally good with the steam-cudgel,” a disaffected Pistonpunk might ask her elders “but wouldn’t it be useful to…?” Oh for a carbine, devout assassins pined.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Het waren de nachten, lodig en lang, die haar een illusie in de weg stonden. Steeds kramakkelachtiger hield dat huis zichzelf nog recht, en ze wist dat het nog spannend zou worden wie er het eerst aan renovatie toe zou zijn, zij of het huis. In bed luisterde ze naar alles wat zich aan de wind gewonnen gaf, een dakpan, een bloempot die met zich liet sollen in de tuin. Maar ook zonder wind; het huis kraakte, als deed het dat uit eigen beweging zoals mensen soms hun vingers kraken, om de gewrichten even los te maken.
Dimitri Verhulst
Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.
George R.R. Martin (A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5))
I know, I know," Moore said. "Mad beliefs like that, eh? Must be some metaphor, right? Must mean something else?" Shook his head. "What an awfully arrogant thing. What if faiths are exactly what they are? And mean exactly what they say?" "Stop trying to make sense of it and just listen," Dane said. "And what," Moore said, "if a large part of the reason they're so tenacious is that they're perfectly accurate?
China Miéville (Kraken)
I was sitting there, as I said, and had been for several watches, when I came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper in which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still wearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, when I began to understand their care.” His grip on my shoulder tightened. “We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with the thickest gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations—books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.” “We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too who leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here—though I can no longer tell you where—no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot might dangle it from one ear for an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other.
Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1))
Can you imagine us tolerating any form of rival intelligence on earth, no matter how it got here? Why, we can’t even tolerate anything but the narrowest differences of views within our own race. No,’ he shook his head, ‘no, I’m afraid Bocker’s idea of fraternization never had the chance of a flea in a furnace.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
The Kraken was somewhat obsessed with posture. As for Lily, she barely gave it a second thought. In her opinion it was better to read books than balance them. That’s what they were designed for, after all. And if you wanted to wear something on your head there was a perfectly good item designed for that too: it was called a hat.
Peter Bunzl (Cogheart (The Cogheart Adventures, #1))
squared my shoulders. “Release the Kraken!” Several sets of eyes settled on me. “What?” I gave a lopsided shrug. “I’ve always wanted to yell that since I saw that movie. Seemed like the perfect moment.” Aiden laughed. “See! That’s why I love him,” I told the group. “He laughs at the stupid crap that comes out of my mouth.” In response, Aiden leaned over and pressed his lips against my temple. “Keep talking about loving me,” he murmured, “and we’re going to scar some of these guys for life.” I
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Apollyon (Covenant, #4))
The Kraken?” Forge’s entire body shakes as booming laughter tumbles from his lips. But I’m not looking at his lips. I’m still watching his dick as it bobs when he laughs. It’s also getting bigger. “Are you going to look at my face or just stare at my dick?” “I’ve seen your face before,” I tell him, not looking up. I got caught staring; I might as well make the most of it. When a navy towel with a silver monogram suddenly covers the object of my attention, I’m forced to glance up . . . at the most beautiful grin that has ever crossed a man’s face. Why is he so attractive? It’s not right. Money, abs, a big dick, and drop-dead gorgeous? If I needed any more proof that life is definitely unfair, it’s standing right in front of me. Even his laugh is perfect. Stop, Indy. Get down to business. He hacked your phone. “Stop laughing. This isn’t swim time.
Meghan March (Deal with the Devil (Forge Trilogy, #1))
Everything is octopusied.
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
Failure. That is a word so little to our taste that many think it a virtue to claim that they never admit it. But blind stupidity is not one of the virtues; it is a weakness...
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
La vida, en todas sus manifestaciones, es conflicto
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Qué ironía que algo que narra tanto no pueda contar lo sucedido.
Eva García Sáenz de Urturi (El libro negro de las horas (Kraken #1))
Decía Naguib Mahfuz que «Hogar no es donde naciste, hogar es el lugar donde todos tus intentos de escapar cesan».
Eva García Sáenz de Urturi (El libro negro de las horas (Kraken #1))
Los patrones se repiten desde que el mundo es mundo. Ese es el poder de las historias: advertirnos. Todo está en los libros. Todo está ya escrito.
Eva García Sáenz de Urturi (El libro negro de las horas (Kraken, #1))
No te sientas culpable: no fueron errores. Era la vida, que se abría camino. La rebeldía, el amor, la libertad.
Eva García Sáenz de Urturi (El libro negro de las horas (Kraken, #1))
You are not a pawn, Lina. You’re not a womb to be utilized or a body to be used for others’ benefits. You are a person, and you get to choose what you want.
Katee Robert (The Kraken's Sacrifice (A Deal With a Demon, #2))
Poor Catalina, her mommy was neglectful to the point of abuse, now she seeks out every single unattainable partner she can find, attempting to prove she’s worthy of love.
Katee Robert (The Kraken's Sacrifice (A Deal With a Demon, #2))
I want to spend the rest of my life on a yacht surrounded by beautiful people who will dribble champagne into my mouth and feed me strawberries and tell me I’m pretty.
Katee Robert (The Kraken's Sacrifice (A Deal With a Demon, #2))
What do a few thousands, or a few millions of people matter? Women will just go on making the loss good. But Governments are important–one mustn’t risk them.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
I don't believe in your God. And he sure as hell doesn't believe in me.
Max Hawthorne (Kronos Rising (Kronos Rising #1))
Take what you want. Take it all. Do not hesitate, because it could all be gone faster than you can blink.
Tiffany Roberts (Jewel of the Sea (The Kraken, #2))
He’s got tentacles, Kane! Tentacles!” “All the better to love you with.
Tiffany Roberts (Fallen from the Stars (The Kraken #6))
My mind had no answers. It was limp and dulled, useless as my missing fingers. One thought came clear: I must do something. I could not stand by while a horror was loosed upon the world. I had the thought that I should find my sister’s workroom. Perhaps there would be something there to help me, some antidote, some great drug of reversal. It was not far, a hall off her bedchamber separated by a curtain. I had never seen another witch’s craft room before, and I walked its shelves expecting I do not know what, a hundred grisly things, kraken livers, dragons’ teeth, the flayed skin of giants. But all I saw were herbs, and rudimentary ones at that: poisons, poppies, a few healing roots. I had no doubt my sister could work plenty with them, for her will had always been strong. But she was lazy, and here was the proof. Those few simples were old and weak as dead leaves. They had been collected haphazardly, some in bud, some already withered, cut with any knife at any time of day. I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me. And my own herbs from Aiaia would not be enough, strong as they were. The monster was bound to Crete, and whatever would be done, Crete must guide me.
Madeline Miller (Circe)
Though emotion roughened his voice, he spoke quietly. This was only for her. "I am your sword and your shield. I am your wolf and your steed. Mountains will tremble at my approach, for they know I will tear them apart if they stand between us. But you need not be afraid, Zenobia Fox, because my heart is iron and my will is steel, and before the new moon rises, I will come for you" ... He kissed her and as he pulled away, he wasn't leaving her. It was just the first step back to her side.
Meljean Brook (The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction (Iron Seas, #4.4; Kraken King, #4))
The sea is full of saints. You know that? You know that: you're a big boy. The sea's full of saints and it's been full of saints for years. Since longer than anything. Saints were there before there were even gods. They were waiting for them, and they're still there now. Saints eat fish and shellfish. Some of them catch jellyfish and some of them eat rubbish. Some saints eat anything they can find. They hide under rocks; they turn themselves inside out: they spit up spirals. There's nothing saints don't do. Make this shape with your hands. Like that. Move your fingers. There, you made a saint. Look out, here come another one! Now they're fighting! Yours won. There aren't any big corkscrew saints anymore, but there are still ones like sacks and ones like coils, and ones like robes with flapping sleeves. What's your favourite saint? I'll tell you mine. But wait a minute, first, do you know what it is makes them all saints? They're all a holy family, they're all cousins. Of each other, and of ... you know what else they're cousins of? That's right. Of gods. Alright now. Who was it made you? You know what to say. Who made you?
China Miéville (Kraken)
Reading consists of perusing razor-thin slices of perpetuity, wrenched from the heart of a murdered tree, and infused with the dark blood that swirls within the hidden depths of every writer's soul. It is their combined angst - the author's and the tree's - that we partake of when we immerse ourselves in the pages of a book.
Max Hawthorne
When he had first started at the center, he had liked to think that he was unexpectedly cool-looking for such a job. Now he knew that he surprised no one, that no one expected scientists to look like scientists anymore.
China Miéville (Kraken)
He shut the door softly behind him, and I threw a pillow at it just to prove a point. I stewed for an hour until I was finally able to drift off again, this time with a smile on my face as I imagined using the Scarf to dangle Ren in front of the kraken, but then in my dream I became the kraken and wrapped my tentacles around him, pulled him into my eternal purple embrace, and stole away with him to a murky cavern in the depths of the ocean.
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Voyage (The Tiger Saga, #3))
Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool’s vote is equal to a sensible man’s? If all the energy that is put into diddling mugs for their votes could be turned on to useful work, what a nation we could be!
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.
China Miéville (Kraken)
A few mad exaggerations, alright, within a couple of days: swear to fucking god, they were like throwing grenades and pulling out all kinds of crazy knackery, it was out of control. Whatever. As if the story, if big enough, reflected glory on the teller.
China Miéville (Kraken)
by a moving reef? A gigantic horned narwhal? A mythical kraken? But I am letting myself be carried away by reveries which I must now put aside, writes Aronnax. Enough of these phantasies. All day Marie-Laure lies on her stomach and reads. Logic, reason, pure science: these, Aronnax insists, are the proper ways to pursue a mystery. Not fables and fairy tales. Her fingers walk the tightropes of sentences; in her imagination, she walks the decks of the speedy two-funneled frigate called the Abraham Lincoln. She watches New York City recede; the forts of New Jersey salute
Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
The bullets are gun-eggs,” Collingswood said to Baron, looking at Vardy. Farmers squeezing their holy metal beasts to percussive climax, fertilisation by cordite expulsion, violent ovipositors. Seeking warm places full of nutrients, protecting baby guns deep in the bone cages, until they hatched.
China Miéville (Kraken)
I know your job's to channel the bleeding divine, and when have I ever stood in your way? Aren't I the bloke puts "Do Not Disturb, Eschatology Being Revelationed" on your door? EH? But you're supposed to keep me in the loop, and turn up when I need you, and do me the sheer minimum modicum of salutage and whatnot, right?
China Miéville (Kraken)
How do you...? What is it you're doing?" he said to Vardy as the man took a breath, mid-insight. What do you call that? Billy thought. That reconstitutitive intelligence, berserker meme-splicing, seeing in nothings first patterns, then correspondence, then causality and dissident sense. Vardy even smiled. "Paranoid," he said. "Theology.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Among the other papers I bought at London Airport was the current number of The Beholder. Thought it is, I am aware, not without its merits and even well thought of in some circles, it leaves me with an abiding sense that it is more given to expressing its first prejudices than its second thoughts. Perhaps if it were to go to press a day later....
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Some midnight-of-all or other [apocalypse] was predicted every few days or nights. Most came to nothing, leaving relevant prophets cringing with a unique embarrassment as the sum rose. It was a very particular shame, that of now ex-worshippers avoiding each other's eyes in the unexpected aftermath of 'final' acts -- crimes, admissions, debaucheries and abandon.
China Miéville (Kraken)
Her knock was wimpier than she meant it to be—so wimpy that there was a second where she wasn’t sure if Keefe had actually heard her. But then he called out, “Back to nag me already? You seriously need to get yourself a hobby. I hear spelunking’s fun. Oooh, or you could try swimming with the krakens! I doubt they’d eat you—but maybe we’ll get lucky!” Which wasn’t exactly a “come in.” But Sophie still grabbed the silver handle and turned it—realizing only as she was yanking the door open that she should’ve made sure Keefe was dressed before she barged in. Thankfully, he was. Mostly… He lay sprawled across a huge bed that rested on a pedestal made of lacy bleached coral, wearing fuzzy blue pajama bottoms covered in tiny black gremlins, with his head propped against a familiar green gulon stuffed animal. “Foster?” he asked, jolting upright—which only drew more attention to the fact that he was currently shirtless. He crossed his arms, his cheeks flushing with a hint of pink when his ice blue eyes focused on her. “I… um… what are you doing here?” Ro snickered from the corner, where she lounged on a cushioned chaise, painting her claws the same purple she must have recently dyed the ends of her choppy pink pigtails. “Smooth, Lord Hunkyhair. Smooooooooooooooooooth
Shannon Messenger (Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8))
The dissection started out smoothly enough. Several boys lifted the thawed carcass out of its container and put it on the lab table. Then a line of girls elbowed their way in to form a phalanx at the dissecting table. They looked like groupies in a mosh pit. There was no room in the front line for the boys, who stood behind and watched, arms folded across their chests....One girl spent most of her time in a trancelike state picking the sharp little rings out of the squid's suckers. She was deeply intent on trying to harvest as many of the toothed rings as possible. Later that day she went home and shocked her mother by saying she wanted to switch her career goal from baking to marine science.
Wendy Williams (Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid)
The Sunday Tidings, which had for some years been pursing a policy of intellectual sensationalism, had never found it easy to maintain its supply of material. The stuff of mere emotional sensationalism, as used by its cheaper and less dignified contemporaries, lay thickly all around, easily malleable into shapes attractive to the constant human passions. Intellectual sensationalism, however, was a much more tricky business. In addition to avoiding the suggestion of sensationalism for sensationalism's sake, it required knowledge, research, careful timing, and, if possible, some literary ability. Inevitably, therefore, its policy was subject to lamentable gaps during which it could find nothing topical on its chosen level to disclose.
John Wyndham (The Kraken Wakes)
Men may sail the seas for a lifetime and seldom, if ever, come in contact with the nightmare monsters that inhabit the caves and cliffs of the ocean floor. Gazing down at the slightly muddy water, the men of The Unicorn saw a squirming mass of interwoven tentacles resembling enormous snakes, immensely thick and long and tapering at their free ends to the size of a man's thumb. It was a foul sight, an obscene growth from the dark places of the world, where incessant hunger is the driving force. At one place, down near the bulge of the hull, appeared a staring gorgon face with great lidless eyes and a huge parrot beak that moved slightly, opening and shutting as though it had just crunched and swallowed a meal of warm flesh. ("Fire In The Galley Stove")
William Outerson (Monster Mix)