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Steampunk Quotes

Browse 91 quotes about Steampunk.

Steampunk Quotes

“When Predator sailed into war, she sang. The rapid winds and rising shrieks suddenly blended into a single harmonious tone. Lines in the rigging and the yards and the masts themselves quivered in time, and began giving off their own notes of music, in harmony with one another. As the speed increased, the chord rose and rose, and built and built, until it reached a crescendo of pure, eerie, inhuman fury. Grimm felt the music rise around him, felt the ship straining eagerly to her task, and his own heart raced in fierce exultation in time with her. Every line of the ship, every smudge upon her decks, every stain upon the leathers of his aeronauts leapt into his mind in vibrant detail. He could feel the ship's motion, forward and down, could feel the wind of her passage, could feel the rising terror of his crew. One of the men screamed--one of them always did--and then the entire crew joined in with Predator, shrieking their battle cries together with their ship's. The ship would not fail them--Grimm knew it; he felt it, the way he could feel sunlight on his face or the rake of wind in his hair.”

“Dust is not a constant. There’s not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make Dust—they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on. And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious…Then they will renew enough to replace what is lost through one window. So there could be one left open.”

“Simon’s baby,” he said, rocking on his heels. “Simon’s baby girl. But you are too many, much too many to be Simon’s baby girl. How many are you?” “Seventeen,” I whispered. He was still uncomfortably close. “Lane!” he shouted. I jumped. “Do I have a niece of seventeen?” “Yes,” came Lane’s voice from the door. The old man relaxed. “Then that is as it should be. Lane always knows when things are as they should be. Where is your father, little niece?”

“The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes. He was growing. New, molten glass leeched out between his fissures, cooled and hardened only to crack again and make room for more liquid glass. The gears inside him moaned and creaked, and metal filings gathered at the base of his transparent stomach, only to fly up again and form more joints and chains and gears. Black smoke poured from his nostrils. Soon he was the size of a large dog, then a man, and still he grew and grew until he towered over my bed, as big as any plow horse I’d ever seen. Glass dripped down his flanks like sweat, a few rivulets still glowing with molten heat.”

“Ticchettio d'ingranaggi. Rumore di pistoni. Sbuffi di vapore. Boyle. Rufus Leddy Boyle, lo scienziato pazzo. Henry sentì crescere dentro di sé la paura, come albume d'uovo montato a neve. In che mani era finito? Tentò ancora di muoversi, ma invano. L'ombra dell'uomo che aveva appena parlato gli coprì il viso. «So che potete sentirmi, lord Demison. Sono il colonnello Comask». Pausa. Anche l'uomo chiamato “dottor Boyle” entrò nel campo visivo di Henry. Poi il colonnello proseguì: «Avete servito egregiamente la corona, ma date le circostanze, credo che sia opportuno congedarvi. Non c'è urgenza di recuperare i documenti. E, almeno per il momento, la vostra missione è compiuta». Fece un saluto militare. «Ci rivedremo a Londra». Salutò il dottore e se ne andò. Henry era ancora impossibilitato a muoversi. Vide il dottor Boyle farsi più vicino e togliersi gli occhialini di protezione. Gli lesse negli occhi una strana mescolanza di orgoglio e compassione. «Bentornato tra i civili, lord Demison», disse l'uomo con insolita dolcezza. «E benvenuto nella vostra nuova vita».”

“D’un tratto gli androidi prodotti dalla Hoffman & Sons parevano più umani degli umani stessi, si mescolavano nel grigio di Londra, tra le carrozze a scoppio e il vapore denso, lasciando in mostra protesi meccaniche come le persone esibivano tratti animali. E non era finita lì, molta gente stava ancora mutando, spariva dalla circolazione per qualche tempo e poi saltava fuori con un aspetto sorprendente. Cominciai a chiedermi quando sarebbe venuto il mio turno, quale aspetto avrei preso e quanto avrebbe condizionato le nostre vite.”

“Some days, the sheer amount of enemies we attracted made me question if maybe our crew was a little too trigger happy. That maybe we’d pissed in too many pots without thinking of the consequences. But then I remembered most folks couldn’t hold to a basic code of honor if it killed them. And kill them we did. Repeatedly.”

“One of the things that's exciting for me about this novel is that, to me, Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron were both, in certain regards, crypto-steampunk. They're both books that are interested in an alternate technological past that in fact didn't historically come to pass. If you were to ask me what my novels were about, I would say, well, these are novels about technology and how we relate to technology and what technology means.”

“A rollicking good read-THE HUNTER is steampunk with a Wild West feel. Theresa Meyers is an entertaining and witty writer with a fresh, new voice in the genre. THE HUNTER is a fun-filled ride through a world of demons, vampires, and things that go bump in the night, and kept me turning pages until the very end.”