78 Quotes by Marie Brennan

Matriarchy is a time-honored staple for any writer looking to invent an exotic society.

One does not cease to treasure a gem simply because one owns another that is larger.

... I think that was the moment at which I realised I was truly leaving. This is something the gentlemen readers of this memoir may not understand, but the ladies will know it all too well. If they are married, they have been through it already, and if not, I am sure they have devoted some thought to the matter. To marry means to leave one home for another, and often one place for another.

Some kind of philosophical mission, something that would push back, if only for a moment, against the inescapable nihilism of this place.

Science is not separate from politics. As much as I would like it to be a pure thing, existing only in some intellectual realm unsullied by human struggle, it will always be entangled with the world we live in.

If science were only some abstract thing, without connection to our lives, it would be both useless and boring. But there have been times when I wished that I might snip a few of the threads tying it to other matters, so they would stop tripping me as I went.

Jake accompanied us as well, having arrived in Akhia shortly before the excavation team departed. I did not tell him our destination until we were safely away from civilization, and found my caution abundantly justified: he whooped and danced about so much, he fell off his camel and broke his left arm.

Jake shrugged, in the way that only nine-year-old children can manage -- and usually male children at that, girls not being permitted the same kind of insouciance.

Wild animals. I had not, until that moment, put dragons in that class. I had thought them something apart.