"Do you always try to upset the world as much as possible?" Clare asked.He gave her a surprised look. "Of course. Otherwise how does anything change?"
- Sam Starbuck
"Miss Fields," said a servant, stepping into the room and closing the door, "There is a visitor for you. Are you in?"Clare blinked. "Yes, obviously.""Ah. Miss Fields, I should advise -- you may be in w..."
"Do Engineers have stories, Jack?" he asked. "What?" Jack said, without moving."Stories. Myths. Things to keep the boredom out on a long shift.""I think they play cards, mostly," Jack answered. It was ..."
"Trains are beautiful. They take people to places they've never been, faster than they could ever go themselves. Everyone who works on trains knows they have personalities, they're like people. They ha..."
"You must live a very free life.""Me?" she laughed. "I am not who swoops out of the sky to rain fire on pirates!""Yeah, but before this I never did much. I mean I did a lot, but...I lived in a room at ..."
"You say great artists sell their souls for their art?""Maybe," she ventured."That's true, I suppose. If you're doing it right, anyway. I've probably sold mine. Jack's certainly sold his. And you, I im..."
"I mean it. Aside from the old coastal cities, which in Australia are still very young themselves, what you have is a vast stretch of wilderness, wholly natural, with all the horror that nature brings ..."
"We [artists] aren't people, not the way most people are. We're just...carriers. Little boats bringing goods from foreign lands."
"Life," Graveworthy said, when he saw Jack was awake and staring at him, "is a series of desperate gambles and boxing matches for the wits, bookended on the one side by events in which one is shot at, ..."