Books Of Blood: Volume One Quotes
"The horror story is often assumed to be reactionary."
"When it comes to the imagination, the only rules should be one’s own instincts."
"The terrifying 'Pig-Blood Blues'; 'Dread', which walks the shaky tightrope between clarity and voyeurism that any treatment of sadism risks."
"Their thrum and throb can be heard in the broken places of the world, through cracks made by acts of cruelty, violence and depravity."
"What would a Resurrection be without a few laughs?"
"But for a few, a chosen few, the horrors will come, skipping to fetch them off to the highway of the damned."
"So read. Read and learn. It’s best to be prepared for the worst, after all, and wise to learn to walk before breath runs out."
"Thoughts of failure, weakness and death evaporated. After all, he was that man, that killer, and tonight the thought of capture was laughable."
"But once in a while to say fuck it to himself was a great consolation."
"His limbs felt drugged and his eyes would scarcely stay open."
"‘We all have to die some time,’ he said. ‘You should be well pleased: you’re not going to be burnt up like most of them: I can use you. To feed the fathers.’"
"‘Serve us?’ it asked, gently, as you might ask a cow to follow you."
"‘You must now do this for us,’ it said through the bestial grin. ‘We cannot survive without food.’"
"I’m tired," the Yattering pleaded, daring to approach the mirror. "Please. I beg you."
"Polo is to be hounded in the name of the Old One, and punished for his mother’s crimes. No torment is too profound for a family that has cheated us."
"Where is your pride?" said the master’s voice as it shriveled into distance. "Pride, Yattering, pride."
"Snow came, soft pats of it against the windows, against the door. Children arrived to sing carols, and he was generous to them. It was possible, for a brief time, to believe in peace on earth."
"In several significant ways, however, he showed his enthusiasm for the coming holiday."
"He seemed to live apart from his experience, living his life as an author might write a preposterous story, never involving himself in the narrative too deeply."
"They came into the house with their bustle and their laughter; they re-arranged the furniture; they threw out the junk-food in the freezer, they told each other (and their father) how much they had missed each other’s company."
"It was cold downstairs, and Polo could have done without padding around barefoot on the kitchen tiles, but he was quietly satisfied that the battle had been joined in such a petty manner."
"The only other explanation—" here he became almost elated by his skimming so close to the truth, "the only other possible explanation is too preposterous for words."
"He traipsed through the entire house, dutifully opening cupboards and peering behind the furniture, then returned to his daughters, who were sitting at the top of the stairs."
"Gina poured a hefty brandy for her sister and sat beside her on the sofa, plying her with spirits and reassurance in about equal measure."
"He picked himself off the floor, brushing the pieces of porcelain, the feathers, the glass, off his shirt and trousers."
"The pursuit of Polo would surely gain momentum now. His daughters would convince him (if he wasn’t now quite convinced) that there was something terrible afoot."
"Carefully does it, he told himself, carefully does it."
"‘Che sera, sera,’ said Polo, attempting levity."
"‘She’ll be all right,’ he said, barely above a whisper."
"‘Yes, Mister Polo.’ Its tail slipped between its legs like that of a whipped dog."
"‘You don’t know nothing,’ said Lacey. It wasn’t a snide remark, the boy was simply telling his version of the truth; his gaze didn’t flicker."
"Let him speak," said Redman. "What don’t I know?"
"The promise seemed to have precious little effect; Lacey was struck dumb. But it was a promise nevertheless."
"The kid looked exhausted by the effort of his failed escape, of the pursuit, of staring."
"He seemed to lose his way somewhere; a kind of puzzlement gagged him."
"Minds weren’t pictures at an exhibition, all numbered, and hung in order of influence, one marked ‘Cunning’, the next, ‘Impressionable’. They were scrawls; they were sprawling splashes of graffiti, unpredictable, unconfinable."
"The sow was beautiful, from her snuffling snout to the delicate corkscrew of her tail, a seductress on trotters."
"Soon she seemed to have the sum of him, and grunting quietly she turned around on her nimble feet and returned to the cool of the interior. The audience was over."
"Dead. A smaller word than alive; but it took the breath away."
"‘Don’t you believe in ghosts, sir?’ The boy wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. He wanted, no, he demanded, a reasonable answer to his reasonable question."
"He is, sir. They all know he is. He hanged himself. With the pigs."
"Idealism was weakness here, compassion and indulgence."
"‘This is the state of the beast,’ it said, ‘to eat and be eaten.’"
"‘I love it,’ she said, ‘Even the grey bits.’"
"She wasn’t much of an actress, but by God she was quite a performer."
"Maybe she wasn’t born to play the classics, but Jesus was she good box-office."
"But then La Duvall, as Edward insisted on calling her, didn’t need to be a great player, she was famous."
"Calloway had resigned himself to the fact that this would not be the definitive Twelfth Night."
"Expression Five in the Duvall repertoire, somewhere between Virginal and Motherly."
"Ah, the loneliness of the long-distance director."
"‘Well, you pays your money and you takes your choice,’ he told himself."
"No late drinking in one or others’ digs, no mutual ego-massage."
"The dead must choose more carefully than the living. We cannot waste our breath, if you’ll excuse the phrase, on less than the purest delights."
"My wife needs no business to dramatize the working of the heart, Terence."
"Besides, her presence meant that the show would go on."
"There comes a time in everyone’s life when decisions have to be made."
"Who better to applaud the sham of passion and pain they would perform than the dead, who had experienced such feelings, and thrown them off at last?"
"But breaking point was closer than anyone would have dared to admit."
"It was an awesome sight, a breath-stopping, sleep-stabbing sight."
"They rose up in celebration of the great contest, chattering their excitement as they swooped over the stamping-ground."
"The masterpiece that the good citizens of Podujevo had constructed of their own flesh and blood tottered and then—a dynamited skyscraper, it began to fall."
"A howl of loss, a howl of anticipation, a howl of puzzlement."
"In the face of it the mind slowed to a snail’s pace, the forces of reason picked over the evidence with meticulous hands."
"It was absurd, to think of giving the Last Rites to so many people."
"They were convulsed into one mind, one thought, one ambition."
"Locked in their positions, strapped, roped and harnessed to each other in a living system that allowed for no single voice to be louder than any other."
"And the voice of the giant, now only a weak copy of its former powers, spoke a single note of idiot music."
"Popolac walked, the noise of its steps receding to the east. Popolac walked, the hum of its voice lost in the night."