Kate Griffin Quotes & Sayings

So ... I suggest you try and get control over your more unusual nature, see if you can't coax those claws away, and I'll try very, very hard not to throw up over what's left of your shoes. How does that sound? — Kate Griffin

A small child being dragged to bed peered curiously at me as it passed, then waved. We waved back, not being entirely sure how else to respond to small creatures like that. — Kate Griffin

Ley lines exist but, like all of magic, they are formed where life is thickest, and where meaning is imposed by man. Life is magic; magic grows where there is most life. — Kate Griffin

Coincidence is usually mentioned only when something good happens. Whenever it's something bad, it's easier to blame someone, something. — Kate Griffin

We ... find it hard to conceive of ... of a consciousness whose power, intellect and capacity can be both infinite and capable of caring," we replied. "We find it hard to accept that there is an unknown thing set above us, to judge us, that we cannot judge in return. Such a concept is, it would appear to us, injustice incarnate, not redemption at all. — Kate Griffin

Nine times out of ten I've no idea what I'm saying and I'm only ever nice to people because I don't have the charisma or the knowledge or any of that to get away with witty put-downs, — Kate Griffin

It was an excellent coat. It was long, grey, suspiciously blotched, smelt faintly of dust and old curries, went all the way down to my knees and overhung my wrists even when I stretched out my arms. It had big, smelly pockets, crunchy with crumbs, it boasted the remnants of a waterproof sheen, was missing a few buttons, and had once been beige. It was the coat that detectives down the ages had worn while trailing a beautiful, dangerous, presumably blond suspect in the rain, the coat that no one noticed, shapeless, bland and grey - it suited my purpose perfectly. — Kate Griffin

I got dressed. You can't be Midnight Mayor in your underpants. — Kate Griffin

How can you bear to understand that you will get old and lose this feeling, will die and wither and encounter nothing but dark? How can you bear it? Since — Kate Griffin

You are deliberately being cryptic," she exclaimed. "Why?" "Because I don't like you. — Kate Griffin

The dream state just before wakening when it seems perfectly logical for the goldfish not to like peeling its own potatoes on the bus. — Kate Griffin

The mind forgets pain, the physical sensation of pain. It doesn't forget terror. — Kate Griffin

We burn because of the beauty in the burning, because life is precious, extraordinary, and we would live as if we were on fire with the brightness of it. — Kate Griffin

My name is Matthew Swift. I'm a sorcerer, the only one in the city who survived Robert Bakker's purge. I was killed by my teacher's shadow and my body dissolved into telephone static and all they had left to bury was a bit of blood. Then we came back, and I am we and we are me, and we are the blue electric angels, creatures of the phones and the wires, the gods made from the surplus life you miserable excuse for mortals pour into all things electric. I am the Midnight Mayor, the protector of the city, the guardian of the night, the keeper of the gates, the watcher on the walls. We turned back the death of cities, we were there when Lady Neon died, we drove the creature called Blackout into the shadows at the end of the alleys, we are light, we are life, we are fire and, would you believe it, the word that best describes our condition right now is cranky.
Would you like to see what happens when you make us mad? — Kate Griffin

We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free! — Kate Griffin

Life is magic.
I knew, without having to ask, what she meant. Life was not the magic of spells or enchantments or sorcery; or, it was, but that was not the point. Life created magic as an accidental by-product, it wasn't, definite article, absolute statement, A=B, magic. Life was magic in a more mundane sense of the word; the act of living being magic all of its own.
This was something we instinctively understood - it simply hadn't occurred to us that it might need explaining. — Kate Griffin

The majority of the employees here are civilians," explained my Alderman guide/protector/companion/would-be-executioner as we strode without a word to the security guards through the foyer towards the lifts. "They conduct themselves within perfectly standard financial services and regulations. There is one specialist suboperational department catering to the financing of more ... unusual extra-capital ventures, and the executive assets who operate it have to undergo a rigorous level of training, psyche evaluation, personality assessment, and team operational analyses."
We stared at him, and said, "We barely understood the little words."
"No," he replied, "I didn't think you would. — Kate Griffin

Men don't ask other men if they're getting home OK, they just assume that beneath the frail, weak exterior lurks a muscle-building kung fu master fearless of ever being mugged. — Kate Griffin

If you could understand by yourself why a thing was true, you would believe it more than just having it told to you by a teacher. — Kate Griffin

When humans work, they frequently become unaware of their own body, their own senses, are surprised to find that their wrists ache or their backs are sore or their friend has left the building. It's as close to an out-of-body experience as can be achieved short of fifty volts, a circle of warding, a pigeon's claw cut from an albino female of purest white feathers, or a lot of mushrooms. — Kate Griffin

Paranoia seems more reasonable when you've got twelve stitches in your side. — Kate Griffin

I put my head against the cold glass of the mirror, fighting the sudden terror that threatened to knock us back to the floor. The trick was to keep breathing, to keep moving. Nothing else mattered. Run long and hard enough, and perhaps while you're running you might actually come up with a plan. But nothing mattered if you were already dead. — Kate Griffin

When we blaze, when we fight, when we rejoice, then I am all us, for that is all we are. When I am ... afraid ... we do not understand, do not like these things. We are me. It is ... frightening, having to be me. — Kate Griffin

Let the ceiling split in two, let electricity dance like burning snakes between the gaps, let it writhe and wrap its tendrils around men's flesh, let them for a moment be seared with blazing light and the earth has opened beneath them and those who did not flee are trapped. Some are impaled on the foundation rods that lanced up from the ground itself - him upon a spike that has passed straight through his belly, pushing him off the ground like a doll [that's just disgusting]. — Kate Griffin

Sharon had read a lot of books on the subject of human society and psychology, and after a great deal about social identity and pack spirit, had taken away this simple conclusion: It is far better to talk bollocks at great length and feel okay about it, than to talk about nothing at all and end up killing people. — Kate Griffin

We ran, as graceful as a burst beetroot. — Kate Griffin

Are you aware, Mr Mayor, then when casually scrying the streets of London, you stand out like a giraffe on roller skates, yes? — Kate Griffin

They seemed to be of that age when things were either one or the other, with no middle ground. — Kate Griffin

The whole calamity would be in one of those police reports that D. B. Sinclair and his "concerned citizens" filed carefully under "T" for "Things" at the back of a locked filing cabinet in the vehicle-licensing centre a day before a bonfire got accidentally out of control. — Kate Griffin

I looked at Judith. "This sounds strange, but I don't suppose you saw three mad women with a cauldron of boiling tea pass by this way?"
"No," she replied. The polite voice of reasonable people scared of exciting the madman.
"Flash of light? Puff of smoke? Erm ... " I tried to find a polite way of describing the symptoms of spontaneous teleportation without using the dreaded "teleportation" word. I failed. I slumped back into the sand. What kind of mystic kept a spatial vortex at the bottom of their cauldrons of tea anyway? — Kate Griffin

When last I checked, you were a sorcerer, not a Jedi."
"You've seen Star Wars?"
"Seen it and denounced it."
"You've denounced Star Wars?"
She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Hollywood should not glorify witches."
"I think you've missed the point ... "
"I also denounce Harry Potter."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Because ... "
" ... because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches."
"Oda, what do you do for fun?"
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humor, "I denounce things. — Kate Griffin

Whoever had said in the guidebooks that the bum bag was a sensible device against theft had lied; no single item of dressware ever invented cried out "mug me" more than a pouch of zip-up plastic suspended by your groin. — Kate Griffin

At least with magical portals and mystic byways, you had a reasonably good chance that economics and time constraints confined the journey to just a few minutes of scrambling around through geographically unsound temporal mists. In the small hours of the morning, the air cold and damp, and the sun not yet even a glow on the eastern horizon, it was more of a challenge to get back using nothing more than the urban travel infrastructure. — Kate Griffin

all paperwork is, pardon my language, Ms Li, pestilential putrefaction designed to confound the real work of society in a quagmire of bullshit? — Kate Griffin

Someone says 'inauguration' in my line of work, and you can just bet there'll be freaky shit. It's like quests. You get told to 'go forth and seek the travelcard of destiny' and you know, I mean, you seriously know that it won't have just been left down the back of the sofa. — Kate Griffin

They had grown bored with ordinary living and needed to seek out this new thrill to make up for the mundanities of existence. And — Kate Griffin

Are you really going to ask such inane questions all the time? Mystic bloody forces; just accept them and cope! — Kate Griffin

Give me back to us! — Kate Griffin

Because you had to see it, to believe it. — Kate Griffin

I hesitated. Truth shot a sly glance at expediency, expediency waggled its eyebrows significantly, truth made a little noise at the back of its throat, and expediency jumped straight on in there. — Kate Griffin

The van stank of cabbage and cornered like a drunken elephant. It would do. — Kate Griffin

I spent the day with the pigeons, on a bench in Trafalgar Square, my bag of belongings huddled to my chest in case someone thought of taking them, and a pile of breadcrumbs at my feet. I let the pigeons congregate around me ... Eventually a local warden came up to me and said , "Sir, we ask people not to feed the pigeons," with such an expression of civic determination that I pretense not to understand English. Instead, I listed my way through various "eh?" sounds until, having exhausted his two words of French and three of Spanish, he concluded that since I was neither nationality, I wasn't worth the bother. — Kate Griffin

I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We ... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us. — Kate Griffin

Make me a shadow on the wall! — Kate Griffin

I'm a little vague on the details but aren't doughnuts just the most marvellous thing to ever come out of organised religion? — Kate Griffin

You know, yeah, it seems to me like there are two kinds of chosen one. There's the kinda who gets chosen for a thing without any say, like someone who gets picked- kings and queens and shit. Then there's the other kind of chosen one; the guy who stands up when everyone else is afraid, when no one else can decide. Guy who chooses to fight, or do the thing that no one else will, 'cause it has to be done, yeah? I mean, most times, that guy's a total shit. And sometimes he's the hero. Seems to me that you're a bit of both. — Kate Griffin

The armored men counted to three, then burst inside the flat, shouting impressive things like "clear!" or "go go go!" as they did. Oda said, "Gum?"
"You chew gum?"
"No. but I always carry it, to use as barter when visiting prisons."
"Do you see how I'm not asking you?"
"Smart. — Kate Griffin

Magic is life,' and that's not quite right. You think that the study of magic, the understanding of it, gives you some sort of better grasp of life. Unfortunately, even I worked out that this isn't quite true; it's a bit skewed, see? We understand this. Magic is not life. Life is magic. Even the boring, plodding, painful, cold, cruel parts, even the mundane automatic reflexes, heart pumping, lungs breathing, stomach digesting, even the uninteresting dull processes of walking, swinging the knees and seeing with eyes, this is magic. This is what makes magic. — Kate Griffin

It's the new me," I explained, waving my hands jazz-style in greeting. "Matthew Swift, Midnight fucking Mayor - I've got multicoloured highlighters and everything. — Kate Griffin

There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human. — Kate Griffin

Some might question why the Midnight Mayor, usually to be found on such nights prowling the streets of the city, was sighted sneaking into a telephone exchange a few minutes before the word began to spill across the streets, spreading outwards from the website of Magicals Anonymous. Some might wonder why one or two computers, having received their messages, exploded three minutes after. But, as the Midnight Mayor was the first to point out, all this was speculation. Nothing could be blamed on him. — Kate Griffin

For life is magic, magic is life, the left-over life we don't even notice we're living. — Kate Griffin

Sharon exuded the brightness of a firefly, the confidence of a double-decker bus, the optimism of a hedgehog and the tact of a small thermonuclear missile. — Kate Griffin

Always be polite to possible murderers: that was the twenty-four-hour-shopping philosophy. — Kate Griffin

Good luck and the eternal interlinked cycle of life crap. — Kate Griffin

You know how it is
you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4? — Kate Griffin

Even if you've no idea where you're going, you have to look like you do. It's what keeps the locals different from the strangers. — Kate Griffin

You read - seen - Lord of the Rings?" "Yessss ... " "Ever wondered why they didn't just get the damn eagles to go drop the One Ring into the volcano, since they seemed so damn nifty at getting into Mordor anyway? — Kate Griffin

Mortals building things the same in the hope that conformity will set them free. — Kate Griffin

She would have liked a drink, but staying awake was proving a challenge and somehow, she felt, as deputy Midnight Mayor she was still on duty. So she cradled an orange juice, whose contents were two parts ice to five parts acid to one part remnant of the colour orange, and trod on her own toes under the table in an effort to remain awake. — Kate Griffin

I like walking. Each step is a thought without words, a thought without words is a thought without blame, without retribution, without consequence. — Kate Griffin

We were beginning to understand why, in pre-anaesthetic days, the Bible had stipulated that suicide was a sin. Anything other than the prospect of eternal damnation, and the human race would probably have done away with itself at the first sign of the dentist. — Kate Griffin

Sharon spoke slowly and carefully. It was, she'd found, the best way to create an illusion of shamanly wisdom, as people often mistook cautious speech for being thoughtful instead of panic-struck. — Kate Griffin

The good must be merciful, even if that mercy to the damned is merely in a quick dispatch. — Kate Griffin

Never underestimate the ridiculous things that have been done in the name of religious-semantic obscurity. — Kate Griffin

If I had to be succinct, I guess I would say that urban magic works on the premise that magic is created by life. And life, these days, is about the underground, the buses, the street lamps, the smell of Chinese take away and the footsteps you half-thought you could hear behind you in the empty car park, but which are gone when you look again. — Kate Griffin

But it's not healthy!" replied the Hag. "A mortal and a god sharing the same flesh?"
"You know, this isn't why we're here. I can get abuse pretty much wherever."
"Yeah," sighed the Maid, "but I bet a tenner I can make you cry in half a minute. — Kate Griffin

You've seen Star Wars?'
'Seen it and denounced it.'
'You've denounced Star Wars?'
She looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Hollywood should not glorify witches.'
'I think you've missed the point ... '
'I also denounced Harry Potter.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'Because ... '
' ... because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches.'
'Oda, what do you do for fun?'
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humour, 'I denounce things. — Kate Griffin

We are
the scylla sisters.
We love
each other
so much
though sometimes it hurts
and sometimes it is joy
and always
together.
We love each other.
Because no one else will. — Kate Griffin

He glanced up as I entered, and for a moment, looked almost surprised.
"Mr. Swift!"
"Ta-da!" I exclaimed weakly.
"You're still ... "
"Still not dead. That's me. It's my big party trick, still not being dead, gets them every time. — Kate Griffin

Little Lion Street was presumably named after an incident hundreds of years ago which concerned something little and almost certainly involved a street but, Rhys felt, had in no way included a lion. — Kate Griffin

Between nowhere in particular and somewhere less than distinct. — Kate Griffin

The exorcist had a slightly Australian tinge to his voice, and the laid-back, whatever-comes-next attitude of a man who had suddenly realised two degrees short of a sunstroke that exorcism was the perfect career choice he'd never been offered in school. — Kate Griffin

It was not the flesh we would have chosen, but I had long since given up dreams of resembling anyone from the movies and, with the pragmatism of the perfectly average, come to realise that this was me and that was fine. — Kate Griffin

Never argue with the surreal; there's no winning against irrationality. — Kate Griffin

I've been reading up on management speak, and I'm guessing that where you say, 'somewhat clouded', what you really mean is 'totally down the pan and in the shit'? — Kate Griffin

You want to know a secret?"
"Always."
"My real name is Dave."
"I see."
"This doesn't seem to amuse you."
"I met Jeremy the troll a few nights ago."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Also known as the Mighty Raaaarrggh! Although ... I can sorta see why you changed the name. 'Dave' isn't knwon for its mysterious, mystic sexiness. — Kate Griffin

Where there is life, there will be magic; the one generates the other. — Kate Griffin

Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out. — Kate Griffin

Between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, I broke into a total of six offices, one penthouse suite and a small bank, and cursed them all. I cursed the stones they were built on, the bricks in their walls, the paint on their ceilings, the carpets on their floors. I cursed the nylon chairs to give their owners little electric shocks, I cursed the markers to squeak on the whiteboard, the hinges to rust, the glass to run, the windows to stick, the fans to whir, the chairs to break, the computers to crash, the papers to crease, the pens to smear; I cursed the pipes to leak, the coolers to drip, the pictures to sag, the phones to crackle and the wires to spark. And we enjoyed it. — Kate Griffin

Me?" Penny's voice, surprised. "Well, I'm Penny Ngwenya, Matthew's butt-kicking, life-saving, totally awesome apprentice. Um. Hi. — Kate Griffin