129 Quotes by Elizabeth Bear

The secret to getting away with lying, is believing with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more so than lying to another.

I’m not concerned about any terrible things you might have done,” he said quietly. “I’m concerned about the terrible things that happened to you.

Her neural pattern must remain intact for the time being, as it was still necessary that she stay herself. Changes to her identity would eventually become inevitable, but those would have to wait until she no longer needed the cloak of who she was.

The end of the world was supposed to be gradual. There was supposed to be warning. A long, slow slide. What we got was punctuated equilibrium: a stately wobbling, then a sudden tipping point. There was plenty of warning, I suppose. We just weren’t paying attention.

Sometimes the truth, told right, was the best lie.

Stud males might be emotional, temperamental, and developmentally stunted, at the mercy of their androgens, but that didn’t make them incapable of generosity, friendship, cleverness, or creativity.

Rudeness is a weak person’s imitation of strength.

Some call it the Cherry Hotel. But most just say it’s Madame Damnable’s Sewing Circle and have done. So I guess that makes me a seamstress, just like Beatrice and Miss Francina and Pollywog and Effie and all the other girls. I.

It is possible to erase and mortify yourself to the point where you actually make more work for the people around you, because they are constantly doing emotional labor to support you. A well-developed martyr complex becomes a means of getting attention without ever having to take the emotional risks of asking for attention. It’s a tendency, along with self-pity, that I use my rightminding to control.