Tom Holt
Author of parodic mythopoeic fiction.
'Good guys is just a fancy way of saying Us. Bad guys is only ever Them.' - c. 12
'Like, there's these new fundamentalist religious fanatics, some name like Meek Militant Action. Their aim's to inherit the Earth, provided nobody objects.' - c. 12
Ronnie Bosch sat in his studio, stared long and hard at his drawing board, and groaned.
It was, they told him, all part of a concept which was definitely going to be The Future as far as Hell Holdings was concerned.
For reasons he couldn't quite grasp, but which he couldn't help but feel mildly flattering, they were going to call it EuroBosch. - c. 2
'Jeez, for a superior intelligence, you must be just plain dumb,' he said. - c. 19
'In fact, as they will be delighted to tell you, Taunton is no longer a one-horse town
these days,they have a bicycle as well.'
'Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.'
Boamund scratches his head. Imagine a knight by Alma-Tadema who's somehow managed to fall off the picture and is wondering how to get back in without breaking the glass. - c. 1
[...] the dragon got three cartsful of angry letters from the Pope (which he dismissed as a load of bulls) [...] - c. 4
The knight raises both eyebrows, like someone by Burne-Jones who's just trodden on something sharp. 'I am Prince Boamund, eldest son of King -'
'Boamund?'
'That's right,' says the knight, 'Boamund, eldest son of -'
'How do you spell that?'
Boamund looks worried. Where he comes from you can take advanced falconry, or you can take spelling; not both. Guess which one he opted for. - c. 1
'Vote!' [Saint] George rolled his eyes. 'This is an assassination, not a debating society.' - c. 7
'I didn't find out she was actually the Queen of the Fey until some time later. Bit of a shock, but I think we could've made a go of it, if she hadn't been so dead set on wiping out the human race.'
'...and we have already seen how insurance is like a pyramid -
(Huge, incomprehensible, hideously expensive, completely unnecessary and specifically designed only to be of benefit to you once you're dead?)'
'Talking to yourself is a sign of madness. Talking to yourself, dead, is class.' - c. 12
'You want the short version. Okay, then: shit happens. Does that answer all your question? Thought not. Now, if you shut your face and let me tell this my way, we might actually get somewhere. Thank you.' -the spokesclone, pg. 319
'That's it?' Boamund said.
'Basically, yes,' the hermit replied. 'I've left out Helmut von Moltke and the Peace of Nikolsburg, and maybe I skated over the Benelux customs union a bit, but I think you've got the essentials there. Anything you're not sure about, you can look up in the book.' - c. 1
'I spy,' said the first mate, 'with my little eye, something beginning with W.'
Nobody took any notice. Even Jan Christian Duysberg had guessed that one back in the 1740's, and he had been thirty-four years old before he realised he was left-handed. - c.2
'I'm an archaeologist,' said Hildy. 'I dig up the past.'
The King raised an eyebrow. 'You mean you refresh old quarrels and keep alive old grievances? Surely not.'
'No, no,' said Hildy, 'I dig up ancient things buried in the earth. Things that belonged to people who lived hundreds of years ago.' As she said this, she began to feel uncomfortable. She had forgotton about the brooch.
'Do you really?' said the King. 'We used to call that grave-robbing.'
'The King rose slowly to his feet and beckoned to the wizard, who had been sitting outside the circle of the firelight, apparently, trying to find a spell that would make a beer-can magically refill itself.'
'You poor suckers [mammals]: you've got all this horrible stuff to get through somehow so obviously there's got to be an incentive, or at least some kind of fix for you to get addicted to. That's love: possibly the sneakiest trick ever played on any variety of life form by a notoriously conniving Universe. You do all these dismal, soul-destroying things because you get attached to each other.' -the spokesclone, pg. 322
'Genies rarely have nightmares, for the same reason that elephants don't usually worry about being trampled underfoot. With the possible exception of bottles, there's nothing in the cosmos large enough or malicious enough to frighten them, or stupid enough to try.'