Quotes by China Miéville, Embassytown

10 quotes found

Popular Quotes

“Sometimes translation stops you understanding.”

“You'd love a bit of pomp: that way in later years you might invoke end-of-empire ghosts.”

“Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”

“I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice...”

“I needed to be alone for whatever would happen. I knew that something would as certainly as if this were a last chapter.”

“A promise fulfilled may be a classic moment, but prophecies mean anticlimax. How much more awesome was an unexpected salvation?”

Common Themes

youth language childhood memory language-understanding science-fiction experience human-nature wisdom cities embassytown lies-that-speak-truth metaphors similes speech gossip secrets stories aging alone avice-benner-cho last-chapter cowardice injunctions regret anticlimax promises prophecies salvation prose

“It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
childhood memory youth

“If I program ’ware with an Anglo-Ubiq word and play it, you understand it,” Scile said. “If I do the same with a word in Language, and play it to an Ariekes, I understand it, but to them it means n...”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
language language-understanding science-fiction

“Sometimes translation stops you understanding.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
experience human-nature wisdom

“We speak now or I do, and others do. You've never spoken before. You will. You'll be able to say how the city is a pit and a hill and a standard and an animal that hunts and a vessel on the sea and...”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
cities embassytown language lies-that-speak-truth

“Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
gossip secrets stories

“Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
aging youth

“I needed to be alone for whatever would happen. I knew that something would as certainly as if this were a last chapter.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
alone avice-benner-cho last-chapter

“I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice...”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
cowardice injunctions regret

“A promise fulfilled may be a classic moment, but prophecies mean anticlimax. How much more awesome was an unexpected salvation?”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
anticlimax promises prophecies salvation

“You'd love a bit of pomp: that way in later years you might invoke end-of-empire ghosts.”
— China Miéville, Embassytown
prose