A gamble. Everything was a damn gamble. Betting against luck and the Fates, again and again, and again. She kept walking, waiting for the bullet.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

At root, I think that any given technology (think nuclear power, gunpowder, the written word...) has the potential to improve our lives, wound it, and also to create unexpected accidents. It's not the technology that's the problem, it's us, the users. However, angelic or demonic, or thoughtful or thoughtless we happen to be is then amplified by our technologies.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Belief.” He snorted. “I could kiss a thousand crosses. Fucking belief.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Believing is for Santa Claus, right? It's for Tooth Fairies. It's for your boyfriend when he says he's never met anyone like you and wants to feel you up. That's believing. It's for little kids. Belief. You believe in God?

— Paolo Bacigalupi

But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Crew up, Nailed!" Lucky Girl shouted. "You think I'm going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank?

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Dahlia… understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village. He wasn’t trying to change them. He wasn’t trying to save anyone. Furthermore, he was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Dahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently. She thought she’d been surviving. She thought that she’d been fighting for herself. But all she’d done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon … not for their lives, but for their souls” (p. 403)

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Everything’s bad, until you find something worse.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Family. It was just a word… Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant… It was a thing everyone had an opinion about—that it was all you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailed thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn’t more reliable than marriages or friendships…maybe less… The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family.

— Paolo Bacigalupi

Hell, we’re all bullet bait sooner or later. Doubt it makes much difference. You make it to sixteen, you’re a goddamn legend.

— Paolo Bacigalupi