1
And don't tell me the end justifies the means because it doesn't. We never reach the end. All we ever get is means. That's what we live with.Nick Harkaway
2
I shall now explain my plan. You may then speak, but only to amend the detail. The broad outline is not subject to negotiation. Are you ready? Good … I propose to have sex with you. I believe it will be excellent sex. Your obedience on one particular issue of timing it will be required to make it unforgettable sex. I will explain that issue as we go. At the moment, I wish to hear your inevitable objection to the general sex part of this plan.Nick Harkaway
3
Joe Spork opens the door. The man departs. Joe turns to Polly to say something about how they’re obviously not going to Portsmouth, and finds an oyster knife balanced on his cheek, just under his eye.“ Can we be very clear, ” Polly Cradle murmurs, “that I am not your booby sidekick or your Bond girl? That I am an independent supervillain in my own right?” Joe swallows. “Yes, we can, ” he says carefully.“ There will therefore be no more ‘Say hello, Polly’?”“There will not. .Nick Harkaway
4
Mercer, ” Polly says, “we are now going to hug. As a group. The experience will be very un- English. It will be good for you. Do not speak, at all, especially not in an attempt to diffuse the emotional intensity of the situation.” They hug, somewhat awkwardly, but with great feeling.“ Well, ” Mercer says, after a moment, “that was certainly–”“ I will hit you with a shovel, ” Polly Cradle murmurs.Nick Harkaway
5
Crotch biting menace: I have my mouth in close proximity to your genitals. Oh thou man who talks to my mistress over coffee. Do not irk or trifle with me! I possess but one tooth, oh, yes, for the rest were buried long ago in the flesh of sinners. Behold my jaws, upper and lower in righteous, symmetrical poverty. Move not, man of clocks, and heed my mistress, for she cherishes me, even in my foul old age.Nick Harkaway
6
Destiny' is the state of perfect mechanical causation in which everything is the consequence of everything else. If choice is an illusion, what's life? Consciousness without volition. We'd all be passengers, no more real than model trains.Nick Harkaway
7
You need to relax and be yourself, not whoever it is you’re trying to be in your mad little head. I bloody don’t, though. I’m me and I’m good at it.Nick Harkaway
8
Photography is without mercy--though it's nonsense to say it does not lie. Rather, it lies in a particular, capricious way which makes beggars of ministers and gods of cat's meat men.Nick Harkaway
9
I love you forever. I am sorry I cannot love you now.Nick Harkaway
10
Mr. Pritchard! What are you doing? Is that O-soto-gari? No! It is not! It is a yak mating with a tractor! That is really very very not very good! My grandfather is weeping in Heaven, or he would if there were such a place, which there is not because religion is a mystification contrived by monarchists! Again! Again, and this time do it properly!Nick Harkaway
11
Joshua Joseph had no great hatred of modern technology - he just mistrusts the effortless, textureless surfaces and the ease with which it trains you to do things in the way most convenient to the machine. Above all he mistrusts duplication. A rare thing becomes a commonplace thing. A skill becomes a feature. The end is more important than the means. The child of the soul gives place to a product of the system.Nick Harkaway
12
Joshua Joseph has no real hatred of modern technology - he just mistrusts the effortless, textureless surfaces, and the ease with which it trains you to do things in the way most convenient to the machine. Above all, he mistrusts duplication. A rare thing becomes a commonplace thing. A skill becomes a feature. The end is more important than the means. The child of the soul gives place to a product of the system.. For anything really important, Joe prefers something with a history, an item which can name the hand which assembled it and will warm to the one that deploys it. A thing of life, rather than one of the many consumer items which humans use to make more clutter; strange parasitic devices with their own little ecosystems.Nick Harkaway
13
Nature intended in her design a hearty life of toil, open fires and plump old age attended by a brood of sun-touched brats.Nick Harkaway
14
Joe is never sure whether they're mad or just alarmingly and uncompromisingly incapable of self-delusion.Nick Harkaway
15
Just got to fnafflebrump caddwallame, all right?" Edie says, and no one pays attention. She learned at Lady Gravely's that nonsense which can be misheard is a very good way to lie without getting caught. People just insert whatever they think you must be doing, and - having lied to themselves on your behalf - are disinclined to check up on you.Nick Harkaway